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AND OTHER SERMONS 


Preached at Trinity Church, Princeton, New Jersey 


BY THE 
VERY REVEREND ALFRED B. BAKER, D.D. 


NEW YORK 
EDWIN S. GORHAM, PUBLISHER 
1924 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/keepingfaithotheOObake 


PREFACE 


This volume is an answer to a request made to 
me from time to time by friends and former 
parishioners, that I would cause a few of my ser- 
mons to be printed and put in book form in order 
that they might be read by those who heard them, 
and others, and help to perpetuate any good im- 
pressions made by their oral delivery. I long 
hesitated about complying with the request, in- 
asmuch as many sermons of more gifted preachers 
are now being printed, and made easily accessible 
to all—but the thought that I might reach a few 
with whom I stood in a more sympathetic rela- 
tion than most of the preachers, and that God 
might use the poorest presentation of His Word 
as a means of spiritual edification and growth, at 
last overcame my reluctance, and I determined to 
send a few manuscripts to the press. The se- 
lected ones were taken from the accumulated pile 
not because they are more worthy of preservation 
than the rest (the best of them have little claim 


to literary merit or homiletic worth) but because 
ii 


1v PREFACE 


they deal with subjects of practical and universal 
interest, and are known (some of them at least) 
to have touched the hearts and springs of action 
of their listeners. If any of them should awaken 
memories of some sacred soul experience with 
which they are connected, or start again the songs 
of faith and hope sung in life’s early day, but 
now scarcely heard above the noises of the world, 
the object of the preacher would be gained, and 
he would be thankful for one more opportunity, 
at the close of his life’s term, to be of service to 
the Church and to its Beloved Lord. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


Ee Ree Ad cee os ks! aad ate ek Te en Mee ae EET 


SERMON I 


KEEPING THE FaIrH . . . a Were L 
I have kept the faith.—II Timothy fy de 


SERMON II 


Tuer GREATNESS OF THE WAY .. . BS 


Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way.— 
Isaiah 57: 10. 


SERMON IIl 


THE MANIFESTATION OF Gop IN Human Lire. 29 
That the life of Jesus might be made manifest in 
our body.—II Corinthians 4: 10. 


SERMON IV 


Tue MANIFESTATION OF Gop IN Human Lire. 39 
That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak. 
—Colossians 4: 4. 


SERMON V 


THE CuHurcH A REVEALER oF Gop’s WISDOM 
TO THE HEAVENLY BEINGS . . 4” 
Who created all things by Jesus Christ By the 
intent that now unto the principalities and powers 
in heavenly places might be known by the Church 
the manifold wisdom of God.—Ephesians 3: 10. 
Vv 


vl TABLE OF CONTENTS 


PAGE 
SERMON VI 
THANKSGIVING FOR THE HoLtingess or Gop. . 58 
Give thanks for a remembrance of His holiness.— 
Psalm 97: 12. 
SERMON VII 
Tut Bopiny RESURRECTION . . 69 


If the Spirit of Him that raised up Toate frien 
the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ 
from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies 
by His Spirit that dwelleth in youu—Romans 8: 11. 


SERMON VIII 


WTERNAL LITER 6 i ee ee 


These things have I written unto you that ye may 
know that ye have eternal life—I St. John 5: 13. 


SERMON IX 


WitNEss-BEARING TO THE FAITH . . 95 


Behold I have given Him for a witness (a ie 
people, a leader and commander to the people.— 
Isaiah 55: 4. 


SERMON X 


CHANGELESSNESS OF Gop, A Basis or CoNnrFI- 
DENCE ere. 0 tte aR ere 


For I am the jek 1 chines tee Therefore ye 
sons of Jacob are not consumed.—Malachi 3: 6. 


SERMON XI 


DISAPPOINTMENTS IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE . 122 
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus 
hath made me free from the law of sin and death.— 
Romans 8: 2. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS Vil 


SERMON XII 


Tuer UntrousLep Hart iS et W1BS 


Let not your heart be troubled, a believe in FiGod; 
believe also in Me.—St. John 14: 


SERMON XIIT 


JOY A SOURCE OF STRENGTH. . weld. 


For the joy of the Lord is your Berane ne 
Nehemiah 8: 10. 


SERMON XIV 


THe Joy oF SACRIFICIAL WORSHIP. . 154 


And when the burnt offering began, the song of 
the Lord also began with the trumpets, and the 
instruments ordained by David, king of Israel.— 
II Chronicles 29: 27. 


SERMON XV 


Human COOPERATION NEEDED IN MISSIONARY 
WorxK cae eal 3) 
The Sword of the Tova aad of Gigebn, per ees 

7:18. 


SERMON XVI 


GENEROSITY IN RELIGION ate i WTS Erde. 


Give a portion to seven and also ef Sent for 
thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth.— 
Kceclesiastes 11: 2. 


SERMON XVII 


Tue SPIRIT OF THE CHILD. . . . 189 
And he took a child and set him in the nidat of 
them.—St. Mark 9: 36. 


Vill TABLE OF CONTENTS 


PAGH 
SERMON XVIII 
MEN oF VISION AND Men oF AcTION. ..... 201 
Behold this dreamer cometh.—Genesis 37: 19. 


SERMON XIX 
Co-WorKkERS WITH Gop. . . . ale 
We are laborers together with God. Bey Corinthian 
3: 9. 
SERMON XX 


SERMON PREACHED AFTER THE WRECK OF THE 
WYTANIG®.0 2. 225 
Be still, then, i eyes ara i am bGda: —Psalm 
46: 10. 


SERMON XXI 


SERMON PREACHED AFTER ARMISTICE Day . 236 
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; 
not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not 
your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid.— 
St. John 14: 27. 


SERMON XXII 


THE Sure Grounp oF Trust FoR THE Future . 249 
That your faith and hope might be in God.—I St. 
Peter 1: 21. 


SERMON XXIITI 


THe CatuHepraL System. . 260 
For as we have many membere in one ody and 
all members have not the same office: so we being 
many are one body in Christ, and every one members 
of one another—Romans 12: 4-5. 


SERMON XXIV 


PREACHED AT A PARISH ANNIVERSARY. . . 289 
A threefold cord is not quickly broken.— 
Ecclesiastes 4: 12. 


SERMON I 
KEEEPING THE FAITH * 


I have kept the faith—II Timothy 4: 7. 


as in the solitude of his prison cell, he 
made a retrospect of his changeful life. 
His mind was sweeping back through his long 
and checkered career, it was calling up the scenes 
and events passed through in youth, middle life 
and advancing age, recounting the joys and sor- 
rows, the gains and losses of the vanished years, 
and if there was any tinge of sadness in the mem- 
ory, it was soon relieved by a cheering thought 
which came quickly to his mind. Whatever of 
failure or forfeiture he had met in life’s hard- 
fought struggle; whatever he had kept or lost in 
the great adventure to which he had committed 


aA ESE are the words of St. Paul the aged, 
Cy 


* Preached on the occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary 
of the Ordination to the Priesthood of the Rev. Charles 
M. Perkins, at Christ Church, West Collingswood, N. J., 
Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, September 29, 1919. 

1 


2 KEEPING THE FAITH 


himself after his compelling vision on the Damas- 
cus road—there was one thing at least which he 
had preserved, and this was of greater worth than 
all he had surrendered. He had kept the faith, 
he could say with a sense of tranquil satisfaction ; 
and this had been most worth while. Now, my 
friends, St. Paul was human like ourselves, and 
it would not be surprising if he sometimes had 
temptations to part with this faith; or if not 
wholly, to give it up, to surrender something es- 
sential to its matter or form. One such induce- 
ment might naturally come through the appeal of 
the old Jewish tradition in which he had been 
reared, and of which he had been a zealous propa- 
gandist in his early days. Judaism, as well as 
Christianity, could point to a divine origin: and 
it had been of such value to the world and was 
still so necessary as a basis of the new religion 
that the temptation might easily arise to com- 
promise with it; and so compound the new doc- 
trine with the old that the offense of the Cross 
should cease. Added to this was the appeal 
which might come to him from his early friend- 
ships which were either jeopardized or lost by his 
affiliation with the hated sect of the Nazarenes. 
Perhaps in life’s experience some new light or 
truth may have dawned on our own souls, and 


KEEPING THE FAITH 3 


we have learned what it meant to keep the truth, 
and lose a friend. St. Paul must have felt the 
loss in an extreme degree. He was a man of un- 
usually strong affections, and so great was the 
pull of the old friendships on his heart strings 
that he could say, “I could wish that I myself 
were accursed from Christ for my brethren’s sake, 
my kinsmen according to the flesh:” and in order 
to gain his brethren or win them for his Lord 
may not the temptation sometimes have come to 
say or do things prejudicial to the faith? Again 
the apostle was a man of great mental power and 
he must have deeply felt his separation from the 
intellectual strength and culture of his age. His 
association was chiefly with men of inferior minds 
and with a system of thought which confessedly 
was weak, and made no claim to the wisdom which 
had produced the philosophies of the schools. 
May he not have heard many an appeal from the 
academy and porch, to which he at once shut his 
ear, as he gave himself up to the study of the 
“hidden wisdom of God, in a mystery” and grad- 
ually learned its infinite superiority, and became 
able to congratulate himself that his association 
was not with wise men after the flesh—and that 
God had chosen “the foolish things of the world 
to confound the wise that no flesh should glory 


4. KEEPING THE FAITH 


in His presence?’ We mention but one other 
thing which may have tried the constancy of the 
apostle in keeping the faith, and this is the 
delay and disappointment experienced in the real- 
ization of its results. Christianity was a prom- 
ise of deliverance from sin. It was a message 
not only of forgiveness of sin, but of setting free 
from its power. It was a promise of purification 
and perfection for the individual believer and for 
the body of believers united in the Church; how 
had the promise been fulfilled? After years of 
experience the apostle could say, ‘“‘Not that I 
have already attained, either were already per- 
fect. I delight in the law of God after the in- 
ward man, but I see another law in my members 
warring against the law of my mind and bringing 
me into captivity to the law of sin.” How was it 
with the various peoples among whom the apostle 
had labored, and gathered into churches and for 
whose sanctification he deeply yearned? They 
were not set free from sin; often does the apostle 
lament that their growth in holiness was so very 
slow, that they were governed so little by the law 
of love, and that they discharged so poorly their 
mutual obligations, as joint members of the great 
brotherhood in Christ: and was not this a severe 
test of his confidence in the faith as a renewing 


KEEPING THE FAITH 5 


and saving power? In these and other ways the 
apostle may have suffered being tempted, but like 
his Divine Master the temptations were without 
sin. On the instant when they were presented to 
the mind he cast them out and he laid hold with 
a firmer grasp on the faith he had espoused. He 
thoroughly believed in the power of Christ 
through faith to accomplish all that the Gospel 
promised; that it was able to perfect his own 
holiness, and that of his fellowmen. He would 
not surrender one iota of this faith. Other 
things he might let go—early hopes, dreams, 
plans, systems, visions, honors, he could part with 
all, and count them all but loss that he might gain 
Christ and have the righteousness which is by 
faith in Him—this he would keep and guard as 
long as life should last and hand it on unimpaired 
to those that should follow after. 

The retrospect of the apostle is turned for 
us into a precept for present use. You remember 
how often and urgently we are charged by the 
sacred writers to keep the faith and how St. Paul 
himself bids us to hold it fast as a good thing com- 
mitted to our trust, and if necessary contend for 
it with the courage, and tactful intelligence of 
the soldier. The charge has a very special and 
weighty import for us at the present time. For 


6 KEEPING THE FAITH 


many are the solicitations. which are coming to 
us from various quarters, either to give up the 
faith, or so to alter it as to make it better suited 
to the needs and conditions of our modern world. 
Some of the plausible suggestions made to us 
sound very much lke some we have supposed to 
have come to the great apostle. Especially is it 
said that the faith is weak, unbuttressed by strong 
rationalistic or philosophic support and unable 
to cope successfully with the difficulties which the 
advancing enlightenment of the age has raised 
against it. It is effete, worn out, incapable of 
effective action, and barren of results. Look at 
the evidences of its exhausted energy in the pres- 
ent condition of the world. It was unable to pre- 
vent the dreadful desolating war in which the na- 
tions were recently engaged or to arrest the 
process of decay which has since started in our 
civilization and which threatens to reduce it to 
utter ruin. It could not quiet the noise of bat- 
tle shock, neither does it insure to us the rest 
and security of a treaty of peace. Let us there- 
fore abandon it, and try some other form of faith 
based, perhaps, on the primal religious instincts, 
or more developed consciousness of mankind, and 
therefore more full of fresh and forceful power. 
But, my friends, does it not stultify our reason 


KEEPING THE FAITH i 


and common sense to attribute the present mourn- 
ful condition of things to the weakness of the 
Christian faith? Neither the war nor the condi- 
tions following it were due to Christianity but to 
the lack of it. They were caused by the failure 
of so-called Christian peoples to put their faith 
into practise, and thus utilize its power. Latent 
in our Christianity is a divine energy which is 
adequate to the restraint of all wickedness, and 
the production of all goodness in mankind—which 
can banish warrings and fightings, create unity 
and concord among the nations, and bring to birth 
the new world for which men everywhere ‘so 
deeply long, but like the latent electric energy 
which is sleeping everywhere in the universe it 
must be called forth and conducted into proper 
channels, if we would take advantage of its bene- 
ficial uses. Faith is the power that sets free the 
spiritual energy conducted by sacrament, and 
other instituted channels from God to man, and 
puts the soul in direct contact with the infinite 
source of life and love, purity and power: and 
so, God helping her, the Church will never give up 
the faith (that is, the truth believed) but will 
preserve it in its full integrity and hand it on to 
future generations. 

Two or three things involved in our keep- 


8 KEEPING THE FAITH 


ing of the faith may be more particularly, yet 
briefly, mentioned. ‘The first is that we continue 
to give full and unquestioning assent to the an- 
cient symbol of the faith which has been trans- 
mitted to us from the earliest Christian ages, and 
should be accepted as an authoritative and official 
statement of the belief of the universal Church. 
Our profession of this faith should be without 
mental reservation, or private interpretation dif- 
fering from the one bearing the stamp of the col- 
lective wisdom of the ages. The obligation thus 
to accept our Creed rests chiefly on the fact that 
the great truths which it formulates come to us 
as a revelation from God, and not as a creation of 
the human mind. They were delivered to us, not 
discovered by us—a divine deposit committed to 
the Church as their custodian: and having divine 
authority stamped upon them they are not subject 
to change or alteration and we have no right to 
barter them away. If our Creed was a mere col- 
lection of religious opinions, like some of the man- 
made confessions of the day, it would be differ- 
ent. Opinions are continually changing, and we 
may alter or amend them without moral blame. 
But truths revealed by God are as changeless as 
the Being from Whom they come, and can never 
be divested of a divine imperative. This does 


KEEPING THE FAITH 9 


not mean, of course, that there can be no change 
in our understanding of the truths, no progress 
in our comprehension of their meaning; there 
must be continual growth in this, else it would not 
be possible for a growing intelligence to keep 
them. The faith is unchanging as a revelation, 
but progressive as a study: And it is one of its 
chief glories that it is both immutable and pro- 
gressive for this qualifies it to give a settled rest- 
ing place for mind and heart and yet afford large 
room for the free movement of both on the solid 
base. Its few fundamental truths are big enough 
to give hospitable accommodation to growing light 
and knowledge on almost every subject of human 
interest and thus, without loss of its stability, it 
may be acquiring all the time a larger, richer, 
more helpful meaning. Opinions have been aptly 
likened to the clothes which we put on and off the 
body to suit the changing fashions of the time, 
while the faith is like the body underneath which 
is unaffected by the change of raiment and keeps 
on growing through all changes, and through 
every stage of development remains essentially the 
same. If Christians generally better understood 
the difference between faith and opinion there 
would be less of religious unsettlement in our 
wonderful age, and there would be fewer unstable 


10 KEEPING THE FAITH 


souls. Christians would generally have a few 
fundamental truths on which they would be 
rooted, grounded, settled, let opinions fluctuate 
as they may, and they would be less likely to move 
away from the Church, the pillar and ground of 
the truth. 

But further, the keeping of the faith is far 
more than a jealous adherence to it as a trans- 
mitted trust, or an unyielding mental assent to 
it as an orthodox formula bound upon us by com- 
petent authority. The duty also includes a con- 
tinued practical obedience to the faith, a translat- 
ing of its truths year after year into the terms of 
personal experience, and thus acquiring, by re- 
peated tests, an experimental knowledge of their 
power and value. He most truly keeps the faith 
who, from youth to age, applies its truths to the 
conduct of his life, and learns how suited they 
are to guide, cleanse and rectify it, in its every 
stage; how they answer to the soul’s deepest 
needs, and sustain in life’s profoundest sorrows 
and chime in with the music and melody of its 
brightest days. He best keeps them who con- 
tinually passes from their verbal statements to 
the living power and presence which is behind 
them, and learns what it means to have Christ 
indwell the heart by faith, to have Him as a per- 


KEEPING THE FAITH Hr 


sonal friend, guide and redeemer, and who longs 
to impart the blessedness of the discovery to 
others; and this leads me to mention the third 
thing involved in the duty, which is, that we 
spread the knowledge of the faith and press it on 
the acceptance of our fellowmen. We cannot 
keep it, unless we share it. It was intended to 
be preached, published, given away to others, and 
unless we do thus impart it, it will be but a bar- 
ren, fruitless, useless hoard without advantage 
to ourselves and unprofitable to those for whose 
benefit we were made its keepers. When the pos- 
sessor of such a faith draws near the finishing of 
his course, how disappointing the retrospect of 
his life must be! It would be lke that of an 
old man sadly holding a lot of mouldered seeds 
in his withered hand, yet remembering that he 
might have sown them in the ground, and let them 
spring up and bear fruit for the nourishing of his 
life and that of many others. 

Many instances of faithful, brave, fruitful 
keeping of the faith, beside that of the apostle, 
are given for our instruction and encourage- 
ment, and one, I am sure, is prominent in our 
minds to-day. While I have been speaking, 
your thoughts have often flown to him whose 
ordination to the sacred ministry, fifty years ago, 


12 KEEPING THE FAITH 


we have come together to commemorate. We are 
here, on this, its semi-centenary, to congratulate 
our brother on his long and useful ministry, to 
express the sympathetic pleasure with which we 
think of its results and the hope we cherish that 
there may be still greater fruits to be garnered 
before its end shall be reached. It is a long back- 
ward distance through which the mind must 
travel before it arrives at the date of the ordina- 
tion. Of the clergy then belonging to the dio- 
cese, he who addresses you is the only one whose 
name is still upon the list, and he counts it a 
privilege and joy to be here and have part in a 
service so full of tender meaning for his long- 
loved brother, and so fraught with venerable as- 
sociation for us all. 

It was a good omen that the ordination should 
have been held on this Festival of St. Michael 
and All Angels, and this must have suggested to 
the ordinand that he might have the help of these 
holy beings in his future ministrations: and that 
in the perfection with which they do the will of 
God in heaven, he might find a model and inspira- 
tion in his attempts to do the will on earth. As 
he recurs to that beginning of his ministry, and 
counts up the gains and losses of the fast-fleeting 
years, | am sure he can take to himself the satis- 


KEEPING THE FAITH 18 


faction of the apostle’s words and say, “I have 
kept the faith,” or if he hesitate to say this for 
himself, we, who know his record well, will say 
it for him. I remind myself that as this is not 
an autopsy so it must not be a vivisection: and 
that care must be taken not to wound the humil- 
ity of the living subject. But something is due 
to the occasion, and my good brother must pardon 
me if I say a few things which, even in his pres- 
ence, ought not to be repressed. One that claims 
the right of utterance is that in his long life he 
has set an example of constancy and courage, of 
alert watchfulness and readiness of resource in 
his keeping of the faith for which we ought to be 
sincerely thankful, and which we ought persever- 
ingly to emulate. For many years he was dean 
of the convocation of Burlington, and leader of 
its missionary work. He and I were sometime 
yoke fellows in the work, and the only charge I 
bring against my partner is that he always pulled 
the hardest and bore the greater portion of the 
load. He is always present at the meetings of 
the diocesan convention, and no one has had 
greater influence in shaping its policies than he. 
He has been sent several times to the general 
convention of the Church, and if in this any 
measure was proposed which he thought was in- 


14 KEEPING THE FAITH 


imical to the faith, he was quick to oppose it and 
help deliver the Church from a threatened peril. 
He is a bold soldier of the Cross, and does not 
fear to draw the sword, at times, in defence of the 
faith, but like the weapon of the great Prince of 
God, St. Michael, his “sword was bathed in 
heaven.”” And if it has ever drawn blood, the 
bloodletting was for the adversary’s good, and 
shows the thrust to have been made in love. Of 
the standing committee of the diocese, our 
brother has long held the office of secretary, and 
as one of the older members of that body I can 
testify to the close and conscientious attention he 
has always given to the duties of the office. But 
I may not prolong too much these remarks. 
Before closing let our subject suggest the 
thought that a time for retrospect similar to that 
which engaged the apostle’s mind will surely 
come to us all. However much we may be oc- 
cupied with present interests or duties or those 
belonging to the near future, we shall all reach 
a point where the mind will turn most naturally 
and easily to a review of the past and what the 
character of the retrospect shall be will be deter- 
mined by the way we are dealing with the present. 
Many whom I am addressing are young: and it 
is to the prospective rather than the retrospective 


KEEPING THE FAITH 15 


that the thoughts of the young are generally 
given. It is well that this should be so, and it 
would be of advantage to most of us, whether 
younger or older, if our minds were more fre- 
quently directed to the future: if our faces, like 
those of the prophets in Sargent’s frescoes in the 
Boston Library, should have a forward look, if 
like them we should be intent upon the fulfilling 
of the splendid promises which shed their fore- 
gleam on our waiting eyes—the full establishing 
of the glorious Kingdom which is biding God’s 
time and is now only shown to expectant faith 
through prophetic glimpses. We all need to get 
something of the hopefulness and courage which 
the foreward look is fitted to impart but we must 
not forget that there is time and place also for 
the backward look, when in the Providence of 
God we are brought to a viewpoint from which 
we naturally retrace the steps of the life path 
already trod, and try to learn the lessons of the 
retrospect. If I may be allowed to make a per- 
sonal reference, let me say that since preaching 
this sermon, I have reached such a point favorable 
to unobstructed visions for I have passed the 
eighty-eighth milestone in my life journey—sixty 
of which belong to the period since my ordination 
to the ministry, and as from the elevated outlook, 


16 KEEPING THE FAITH 


I reverted to the events and experiences of the 
long journey, how varied and many colored were 
the pictures presented to my view, how suggestive 
the different lessons they pressed home on the 
conscience and heart! Mingled in the retrospect 
were memories of bishops, priests and laity with 
whom I labored in the early days, but who had 
long since finished their course, and gone to their 
reward—there were recollections of bright days, 
and cloudy days, of joyous services and sadly 
solemn ones in church and home, of births, 
baptisms, confirmations, glad Eucharists, happy 
marriages, funeral bells and processions to the 
grave: there were memories of gains and losses, 
victories and defeats in the long working and 
fighting day, but when I contrasted the successes 
with the failures and losses, putting the actual 
results alongside of what might and ought to have 
been obtained; when I compared my own poor 
imperfect ministry with that of some of the great 
Saints of God and especially with the complete- 
ness and perfection of the ministry of our Holy 
Lord what could I say but that I had been an 
unprofitable servant—Lord have merey—apply 
to us all the merits of Thy most precious Blood! 
There was no satisfaction or ground of confi- 
dences anywhere in the retrospect apart from the 


KEEPING THE FAITH Tf 


hope expressed by the Apostle I have kept the 
faith—I have not lost my hold on Jesus Christ 
who can forgive my shortcomings, atone for all 
my deficiencies and present me faultless at last 
before His throne. 

O my friends let me entreat you to hold on 
to the faith in which you have been reared, and 
let nothing wrest it from your grasp. It is the 
most precious thing in all the world, and you can 
better afford to lose everything else than to part 
with this. Out of the full yearning heart of a 
veteran comes the earnest wish and prayer that the 
faith which has been the strength of your youth, 
may be the joy and support of your middle life 
and declining age, may illume the passage through 
the shadowed valley and make life’s sunset more 
beautiful and hopefully prophetic than its early 
rising ! 


“The golden evening brightens in the west; 
Soon, soon to faithful warriors cometh rest; 
But yet there breaks a still more glorious day ; 
The King of Glory passes on His way!” 


God grant that one who knows Him now by 
faith may follow in His train and be one with 
Him in His resurrected and ascended life! 


SERMON IT 
THE GREATNESS OF THE WAY 


Thou art wearied wn the greatness of thy way. 
—Isaiah 57: 10. 


MAINA ANY are the causes of weariness in life, 
and various are the kinds of people af- 
—— fected by them. The idler is tired of 
life because he finds nothing in it to relieve the te- 
dium of its vacant hours. The sensualist is weary 
of it because he has exhausted its capacity to give 
him pleasure. The pessimist thinks it not worth 
the living because it is so full of failure and mis- 
fortune. The misanthrope hates it because he has 
to live with men of so small a breed. The worker 
loses relish for it, because he is fagged by its drud- 
gery, or jaded by the incessant repetitions of its 
dreary rounds. But very different, my Christian 
friends, is the cause of life’s weariness which is re- 
ferred to in this text. Not because life was little, 
or mean, or hard, or evil, or insipid daes the 
prophet say that Israel was weary in his way, but 
18 


we 


KEEPING THE FAITH 19 


because it was so great and grand and so full of 
sublime import and splendid possibility. It was 
a way that had been pointed out by the pillar of 
cloud and of fire, and was still made luminous by 
the Spirit of God speaking through the prophets, 
or the visible Shekinah. On the way the golden 
light of promises continually had shone, and look- 
ing on to its end, Israel had the splendid vision 
of a kingdom which should satisfy the nation’s 
deepest yearnings, and bring untold blessings to 
the Gentile world. But the way was long. Its 
issue seemed to be in the dim and distant cloud- 
land. In the meantime it made high moral de- 
mands upon him corresponding to the greatness 
of his knowledge and the glory of his destiny. 
His living must be pure and good and great, to 
agree with the greatness of his way. Israel could 
not sustain the weight of the charge. THis faith 
broke down. He staggered at the promises. 
More than once he forsook the way of the covenant, 
and revolted from the God of his fathers, and in 
one of the periods of such revolt the prophet, to 
win him back to his allegiance, reproachfully re- 
minded him, “Thou art wearied in the greatness 
of thy way.” The words have a deeper meaning 
when applied to the Christian, for we are in a still 
greater way than that which Israel trod. His way 


20 KEEPING THE FAITH 


was but a shadow and symbol of cur own. We are 
living in the period of the fulfilment. The King- 
dom which Israel dimly saw is here. The King 
is seated on His holy seat. Instead of the cloud 
and the voice we have the leading of a manifested 
God, and all the supernatural wonders of the Gos- 
pel. We are actually living and moving amid the 
grandeur of the scenes which Israel saw afar off, 
and only as in a dim picture; and it is the great- 
ness of the way that often wearies us who bear the 
name of Christ and are counted as His followers 
and friends. Let us notice two or three of the 
elements of greatness from which the fatigue may 
easily arise. 

(1) And first, the truths by which the way is 
revealed to man are so great that the mind often 
wearies in the effort to apprehend them, and falls 
back into a state of listlessness and languor because 
of the seeming hopelessness of the task. These 
truths are summed up for us in the old Creed of 
Christendom and are chiefly, as we know, the In- 
carnation, the Atonement, the Resurrection and 
Ascension of Jesus Christ, and His continued 
Presence with His Church through the Holy Spirit 
Whom He sends. These are the truths by which 
the way is introduced—and surely with truths of 
grander import the human mind is never called 


KEEPING THE FAITH 21 


to deal. They are wonderful in themselves, and 
in their bearing on the destiny of the human race, 
and when we look on to the end of the way and 
peer into the splendid visions of futurity which 
they open to mankind, we are almost overwhelmed 
by the sense of sublimity and grandeur with which 
they strike the mind. For it is our Creed that 
God came down to man in Jesus Christ, that man 
might be lifted up to God and God be in man and 
man in God for ever. Jesus the Incarnate Son is 
our way; and united unto God through Him, we 
are to follow in the steps by which He went back 
to the Eternal Father. After the brief term of 
the present life we are to mount up from the 
grave, go to the place where He now is, and enter 
on a career of endless progress, with Jesus as our 
Leader in the interminable way. Now these are 
things which pass man’s understanding. “They 
are things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
neither have they entered into the heart of man:” 
and it is their surpassing eminence that partly ac- 
counts for the feeling of mental languor with 
which many are viewing them at the present day. 
It is because they are incomprehensible rather 
than incredible that an age trained to precision of 
thought and knowledge turns away from them im- 
patiently or despairingly and devotes itself to the 


99 KEEPING THE FAITH 


things that can certainly be known. Men do not 
ordinarily wish them not to be true, but they seem 
too good and great to be true or at least to be 
known as true; and so they lose their interest, as 
in things belonging to the region of the vague or 
unknown. ‘The way seems to be amid vast moun- 
tains which hft up their inaccessible summits into 
the mystery and darkness of the clouds, and be- 
fore which the mind reels, and the imagination 
faints, as we think of an attempt to scale the dizzy 
heights; and yet what would a way be without 
mountains, or stretches of the infinite sea? A 
religion which reduced everything to the dull level 
of man’s understanding, we would not long have 
use for. A God Whom we could perfectly com- 
prehend we would not long reverence or serve. 
We want and must have a God Who hides Him- 
self. He and the things which He reveals cannot 
satisfy even the intellect, unless they stretch be- 
yond it and lose themselves in the infinte un- 
known. What we need to cure the mental weari- 
ness, is the recognition of this fact, and also the 
endeavor to enlarge the mental vision sufficiently 
to take in the greatness of the way. How often 
we forget this. Are not many in our day seek- 
ing to pare down the truths and facts of the 
glorious Gospel to the littleness of our minds, 


KEEPING THE FAITH 23 


rather than to expand the mind to the large- 
ness of the truths? Oh, my friends, the chief 
thing for us all is to grow to the proportion of 
things so glorious and sublime, to become equal 
to the cordial entertainment of the thrilling 
thoughts and splendid hopes they awaken; to 
have created within us such a sense of spiritual 
vastness, as will give abundant room for transac- 
tions conducted on so large a scale as the Incarna- 
tion of the Son of God, the infinite Passion with its 
far-reaching effects in heaven and on earth, the 
great rising from the grave which opened new win- 
dows in our earthly prison and enables us to see 
something of the grandeur of the destiny reserved 
for body and soul in the future world. That 
would cure the weariness. That would be invig- 
orating, inspiring, and uplifting, and help us to 
set out again with renewed strength and fresh en- 
thusiasm on the sunlit way. (2) But going on 
from this we remark that not only the truths but 
the duties of the way often seem too great for us. 
They overtax our practical powers, and our in- 
ability to cope with them often creates a feeling of 
dissatisfaction which is wearing and tiring to the 
mind. ‘This feeling is experienced not only by the 
imperfect and unaspiring Christian, but also by 
the saintliest and the best. Indeed the more we 


94. KEEPING THE FAITH 


grow in sanctity the less likely are we to be satis- 
fied with our own achievements, or to find in them 
the ground of our acceptance with a Holy God. 
It is impossible for one whose standard of duty is 
measured by the perfect law of God, and the flaw- 
less obedience of the unsinning Son, ever to be 
justified by his own works. The ideal is too high, 
the way too great for that. No matter how great 
one’s spiritual attainment, how earnest his devo- 
tion to good works, if he measures himself by the 
plumb-line of God’s holiness, he will feel how far 
short his best actions come, and confess that he 
is an unprofitable servant. You know how true 
this was of Saint Paul, the great apostle, whose 
mind was so spiritual, whose life was so full of 
good works from end to end of his marvelous ¢a- 
reer that we esteem him one of the greatest of the 
saints; yet what does he say of himself? “I am 
less than the least of all the saints, of sinners I 
am chief.” The same is true of one of the later 
saints, Catherine of Sienna, whose life was de- 
voted to the service of love and faith through all its 
wonderful days, and yet at life’s close her pure 
soul poured itself out in confessions that surprise 
and startle the shallower piety of ordinary Chris- 
tian people. Even we who have so little claim to 
saintship, who are so far below these shining in- 


KEEPING THE FAITH 25 


stances of devotion, can never be satisfied with our 
own achievements or attainments, or be without a 
painful sense of deficiency when we compare our- 
selves with the greatness of the way. What has 
been our experience in this Lent? We may have 
begun the season with the desire and purpose to do 
better, and go higher in the Christian life than we 
yet had done, but have we not found the way too 
great for us? Have we felt a penitence deep 
enough to satisfy the conscience, a love great 
enough to content the heart, or attained an obedi- 
ence and unselfish service sufficient to justify us 
in the eyes of a Holy God? Have we reached a 
point of goodness, excellence, purity, where we may 
say, This is far enough for me, here I may sit 
down and rest content? That I think is impos- 
sible for any of us. The soul is made after too 
large a pattern for that, and is doomed to a noble 
discontent, to an endless seeking after higher and 
nobler things than it yet has reached. Like the 
artist making a picture he cannot paint, or the 
poet trying to write a verse he cannot sing, the 
Christian is ever following an ideal he cannot 
fully attain, and which seems further away the 
nearer he approaches it. What then, beloved, 
shall we do about it all? Shall we take up a way 
which is less great, an obedience less exacting, an 


°26 KEEPING THE FAITH 


ideal less lofty, and one that has been shriveled to 
the proportions of the low and unaspiring mind ? 
God forbid. That would dishonor Him and never 
would content our immortal powers. Shall we 
then, without abandoning the great way, yield to 
the feeling of weakness and discouragement and 
pursue it with less ardor than before? Not this 
should be the effect of the feeling, for we should 
know that the sense of weariness at the greatness 
of the way may not be altogether wrong. It 
shows, at least, that you know something of the 
grandeur and sublimity of your calling, and 
of the magnificent possibilities of your human 
life. You have had a view of the towering 
mountains and a glimpse of the far-reaching 
sea. Such weariness is far better than that 
which is induced by a sense of the littleness, the 
meanness, the emptiness of life, and should in- 
duce us to seek a renewal of energy and strength 
and take a fresh start, as those who although 
tired in the way are not tired of it. And how 
shall this be gained? What shall the sense of 
weariness lead us to do? It should drive us to 
Jesus Christ our Lord, the Giver of all spiritual 
strength and the Author of the gracious invita- 
tion, “Come unto me all ye that are weary and 
heavy laden and I will give you rest.” Look- 


KEEPING THE FAITH Hee 


ing unto Him we see the ideal we cannot reach 
fully attained. We see the obedience we cannot 
render completely fulfilled. We see the perfec- 
tion for which we yearn splendidly achieved. 
That attainment, that perfection, was won for 
us as well as for Himself and is the pledge of 
our own victory, if we are in Him, and are 
looking continually for His grace and help. The 
thought should be a sovereign cure of weariness, 
an unfailing spring of hope and energy, whenever 
baffled and discouraged by the greatness of the 
way. On this Mid-Lent Refreshment Sunday, 
when our Holy Lord is shown as the gracious Pro- 
vider of the wants of the famishing multitude in 
the desert, let us resort to Him for new supplies 
of grace and strength, and then start out afresh 
on the remainder of our way. Oh, the beauty, the 
glory, the grandeur of the way, a way illumined 
by the splendid truths which shine overhead, and 
send down just the light and cheer we need as we 
journey on, and, like the glorious sun, part with 
nothing of their magnificence when their rays fall 
on the dust and stones of the common path; a way 
so plain that the wayfaring man, though a fool, 
cannot err therein, and yet leading to an unknown 
radiancy of glory, a bliss beyond compare; a way 
to holiness and happiness and God, to the glory, 


28 KEEPING THE FAITH 


honor, and immortality of man. Who would not 
enter it, who would not follow it to the end? 
Tired worker, faint pursuer, weary traveler, look 
to Jesus, put up the prayer, “Quicken Thou me in 
Thy way,” draw fresh supplies of grace from Him 
in the Sacrament of the Altar, then go forward 
travelling in the greatness of His strength. 


SERMON III 
THE MANIFESTATION OF GOD IN HUMAN LIFE 


That the life of Jesus might be made manifest 
in our body.—II Corinthians 4: 10. 


MANNE great reason for the creation of our 
@ Wy human nature was that it might make 
7 known something of the nature of the 
invisible God. Man was made in God’s own 
Image in order that his nature might become a 
medium of exhibition of the divine attributes and 
character. God puts His life into us, implants in 
us certain mental and moral powers similar to 
His own, and thus enables us to learn something 
about Him by the study of ourselves and be com- 
petent to communicate the knowledge to others. 
Human nature was meant to be a mirror in which 
we might see reflected something of the features 
of the face of God. The reflection is dim and 
indistinct and sometimes so blurred and distorted 
that it is difficult to trace in it any resemblance 
to the Divine Original, and it is because our nature 


became such an imperfect medium for the dis- 
29 


30 KEEPING THE FAITH 


play of God that He in time sent His Beloved 
Son to take that nature upon Him, and renew and 
cleanse it and make it once more a fit instrument 
for the revelation. The Incarnate Son lived out 
the life of God*in our human flesh and before 
our human eyes in order that we might have a 
complete exhibition level to our capacities of the 
infinite perfections of the Most High and be able 
to study them without presumption and follow 
them without mistake. It is the significance and 
sublimity of our mission, friends and brethren, 
that we too are wanted—ponder it well—to mani- 
fest God; that we have been created and redeemed 
that we may become true interpreters of God to 
ourselves and others; that we may show forth in 
life and conduct the praises of Him Who has 
called us out of darkness into His marvelous 
light. How high and holy the vocation! How 
can we ever be content to devote the life intended 
for such noble, soul-inspiring ends to low, mean, 
sordid, or selfish uses ? 

St. Paul, the writer of our text, was one who 
deeply felt the lure and urge of the high calling. 
He often speaks in his Epistles of his duty to 
manifest the Christ Who had been secretly re- 
vealed to him, and he earnestly exhorts his fol- 
lowers to do the same both in their speech and be- 


KEEPING THE FAITH i! 


havior. Of course, the Christ he was to show 
forth must in some sense have been an interior 
possession, a secret something within him which 
was waiting to come without and which He was 
capable of making known to others. In the im- 
mediate context and throughout all his Epistles 
he uses the expression, “Christ in us.” His usual 
concept of the Christ is not that of the outward 
historical Jesus described by the Evangelists, but 
of One Who indwells us by His Spirit, One Who 
has so imparted Himself to us, so united Himself 
to our very being that He becomes, as it were, an- 
other and higher self, operating through our 
minds and wills and affections without interfer- 
ence with our identity or disturbance of the unity 
and harmony of our being. It is worth our while 
to tarry a little in the development of our theme 
and dwell upon this wondrous truth of our re- 
ligion that Christ is really in us to be manifested 
or shown forth to the outward world. The 
apostle speaks of it as a mystery, and it is a mys- 
tery so far beyond our understanding that we 
often refuse to give the words any very real or 
definite significance. We relegate the doctrine 
of the indwelling Christ to the region of mys- 
ticism, into which we cannot enter without being 
misted ourselves, and so we leave it in the 


32 KEEPING THE FAITH 


fog of obscurity, and think of it as too dim and 
vague for practical use in the daily life, or 
if we sometimes bring it out of the misty realm 
into the region of clear thought and definite ac- 
tion we are apt.to strip it of the glorious garb 
in which it is purposely invested, and try to set 
it plainly before the mind by descriptive phrase 
and suggestive explanationt We say that the 
words, “Christ in you” mean no more than that 
we have certain notions, feelings, or impres- 
sions respecting Christ, or that we bear Him in 
our minds and thoughts and affectionate remem- 
brances. But there is far more in the Scripture 
phrase than this. It implies that we have within 
not merely certain affections, or intellectual con- 
cepts of the Christ, but Christ Himself, This is 
asserted so often and so emphatically in the Holy 
Scripture that if it be not literally true, we are 
then unable to attach any real and definite mean- 
ing to the language of the Bible. ‘Know ye not 
that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be repro- 
bates. He dwelleth with you and shall be in 
you. Builded up an habitation of God through 
the Spirit, that Christ may dwell in your hearts 
by faith.” There is something in these and other 
similar expressions that refuses to be explained 
away. We can only infer one thing from them, 


KEEPING THE FAITH 33 


and that is that somewhere in the secret penetralia 
of the regenerate being, in the dim region where 
the lamp of consciousness scarcely sheds its light, 
Christ really and personally has taken up His 
dwelling place. It is no discredit to this blessed 
truth, that we cannot fully explain the nature of 
His union with our personality and being, nor that 
neither our new nor old psychology makes any ac- 
count of it in their analysis of the constituent parts 
of that being. We believe that God is also in na- 
ture, that He is indeed at the base of all created 
existence, and that all natural phenomena mani- 
fest Him, in their several ways to the discerning 
Eye; that we see something of Him in the rolling 
stars, in the lightning that leaps from cloud to 
cloud, in the waves that curl on the ocean’s breast, 
the leaves that shimmer in the forest, the fair 
colors of the flowers that bedeck the fields and hill- 
sides in their autumn robes of beauty. Does it 
impugn the doctrine of the immanence of God in 
nature that we cannot detect Him there, cannot 
find the point of contact between the Creator and 
His works? No more should the indwelling in 
our own being be brought into suspicion because 
we cannot put our finger on the place of His 
abode. A simple analogy may help us to conceive 
of the inness of the Christ without metaphysical 


34 KEEPING THE FAITH 


dress or laborious attempts at elucidation. There 
is a close union between a mother and a child, and 
the child is often wondrously like the mother, in 
feature, gait, movement, and expression. This is 
because the mother is in the child, because she 
communicated her own nature to the child before 
its birth and so made the child capable of mani- 
festing forth her secret life. Thus does Christ 
impart His nature to us, and make us capable of 
exhibiting the characteristic traits of His life and 
being. And let us go on to remark that the mani- 
festation expected of us is not limited to any age, 
stage, or condition of our existence. It is a 
charge on every age, and divine grace makes it 
possible that even childhood should be competent 
to make its own suitable revealing of God. Means 
are provided at the very birth of a child to re- 
move any natural disability it may have for such 
a task and in baptism the germs of the Christ life 
are implanted in the little one, in order that they 
may grow with its growth, and expand into the 
beautiful things which naturally belong to their 
development, and which sometimes suggest to the 
beholder a thought of God. Have we not all, at 
times, seen things which make us think of God in 
our little children—in their lovingness, unselfish- 
ness, trustfulness, simplicity, grace, and charm, 


KEEPING THE FAITH 35 


exhibited unconsciously while at work or play, 
and have we all been careful to dedicate them to 
Him at the Church’s font and give them the help 
of the Christian nurture which is their right and 
due? O my friends, the care and culture of the 
children is the first and greatest charge which is 
laid upon us, and let us estimate at its proper 
value what they are doing to make God known in 
our sinful world. So great is its worth in the 
eyes of their Lord and ours, that He tells us un- 
less we become as little children we cannot enter 
into His Kingdom. 

But there is a fuller manifestation of God 
proper to youth, men and women in middle life 
and ripening age, and on this God is greatly de- 
pending for the spread of His knowledge in the 
world. It is not merely what we show forth of 
Him when engaged in strictly religious acts and 
exercises, prayer, praise, meditation, and the like, 
that He wants, but also what we may manifest 
in our business, pleasures, professional pursuits, 
in all the duties and activities of our secular life 
and calling. There is a showing forth of God by 
the merchant, the tradesman, the mechanic who 
sets an example of honesty, probity, diligence, and 
a sincere desire to be of service to others. The 
student may show it by his bearing in the class- 


36 KEEPING THE FAITH 


room, and the young girl by her modest demeanor 
in the parlor and the social gathering. We may 
all do it in whatever we engage if we set God be- 
fore us as the end and object of all our endeavor, 
if in nothing are we actuated by purely selfish 
motive, if-in everything we seek the glory of the 
Holy Name and the good of our fellowmen. The 
knowledge of God communicated thus is wonder- 
fully auxiliary to that which is gained by the 
reading of the Bible or the sermons explanatory 
of it which we hear from time to time. It is a 
demonstration of the Bible truths in visible form 
and action from which we cannot get away. 

We must not forget to refer to the part which 
aged people have in the great work we are con- 
sidering. We older people sometimes think that 
we have outlived our usefulness, that we have 
nothing more to do for God; and that we might 
as well wrap our robes about us and lay us down 
to die. But in this.we are mistaken. We still 
have a mission to fulfill and it is one in which 
younger persons cannot share. It is one which 
Christ Himself could not perfectly discharge when 
He was on the earth. The mission is to show 
how the Christ life should be lived in the midst 
of the infirmities and disabilities of advancing 
age. Christ could not do this for He died at the 


KEEPING THE FAITH 37 


age of thirty-three. He gave us a perfect example 
of how the life should be conducted in youth and 
early manhood, but could give us no example of 
how it should be done in our declining days. He 
has left this for us to do for Him, and thus as 
the apostle says ‘fill up what is behind of the 
afflictions of Christ for His Body’s sake which is 
the Church.” It is a difficult and arduous mis- 
sion, requiring patience, faith, submission for its 
fulfilling, but it is one that is full of compensa- 
tions and sweet experiences of the love of God and 
the power of His sustaining grace. And it may 
help and bless the lives of others in ways that we 
may never know. And so, my friends who with 
me are nearing life’s verge and setting sun, let us 
pray for grace to endure to the end, and that we 
may never fail nor falter in the fulfilling of our 
holy mission. And let us all whether young or 
old determine that we will be more faithful and 
earnest in our endeavors to manifest the Christ, 
and do all we can by lip or pen or life to make 
Him known. May God grant that the manifest- 
ings in our last days may be more perfect than 
those in our manhood’s strength and prime, and to 
this end may He grant us fuller revealings of the 
divine beauty and glory as this is reflected in the 
image of His Son. There is an ineluctable charm 


38 KEEPING THE FAITH 


about the Christ image when seen in the light of 
the revealing Spirit and it is able so to grip us 
that we cannot overcome it or escape from its 
thrall. God grant that we may all know some- 
thing of its divine enchantments, and that while 
beholding the Christ, His image may be so im- 
pressed upon our souls that we may make Him 
known to many who shall see Him there. 


SERMON IV 
THE MANIFESTATION OF GOD IN HUMAN LIFE 


That I may make it mantfest, as I ought to 
speak.—Colossians 4: 4. 


(The first part of the sermon on this text re- 
produces in substance the thought and language of 
the preceding one. The application of it, however, 
is quite different, and is here printed.) 






ey UT not to dwell on this we go on to re- 
1S) mark that the capacity ought to be turned 
| into actual realization and result. The 
fact that Christ is behind the springs of life 
puts on us the responsibility of showing Him 
forth in all the ways in which the life may be 
expressed. “That I may make it manifest as 
I ought to speak,” says the apostle, and the same 
sense of oughtness should be felt by all to whom 
the mystery is committed. In thought, speech, 
act, temper, and demeanor, we should make it 
evident that Christ is within the heart and 
behind the will, occupying the central seat of 


influence and control in the secret being, The 
39 





m 


40 KEEPING THE FAITH 


nobility and sweetness of His nature should 
first transform and cleanse our own, and then we 
should exhale its sweetness on all the common 
walks of life, as the flowers shed forth their per- 
fume on the common air. In the discharge of 
this responsibility, we need hardly say that we 
must look well-to the external deed and demeanor, 
through which the Christ manifestation is made; 
that the life should be patterned after the Christ 
ideal; and outward act and character conformed 
to the perfect model in the Gospel. When we are 
in difficult or perplexed situations we should ask 
how Christ would act if He were in the same posi- 
tion, and that will ordinarily show us what we 
ought to do. But it also goes without saying that 
success in the matter depends far less on attention 
to the outward conduct than to the interior life. 
Out of the heart are the issues of the life, and the 
important thing is to see that Christ is really en- 
throned in the heart and that thought, will, and 
affection are actually dominated by Him. We 
should often think of the mystery of Christ in us, 
and by acts of faith and love and spiritual recollec- 
tion retire into the secret sanctuary where He 
abides, and come out of it with a sort of Christ 
consciousness mingled with our own. It is pos- 
sible for us all to cultivate such a consciousness 


KEEPING THE FAITH Al 


and to have our thought and will and personality 
so coalesce with Christ’s as to be able to say with 
the apostle, “I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth 
in me.” If this be our happy state, then the 
manifestation of Christ will proceed without much 
labored endeavor expended on the outward life. 
We shall simply be transparent media through 
which the light within will stream away, sponta- 
neously, and shine through all the walk and con- 
versation. We shall not need so much to make 
our light shine, as to let it shine in obedience to 
its own nature. Light cannot help but shine, and 
our shining will be natural and inevitable, and 
without attempt at parade or concealment; and 
the revelation will be all the more full and beauti- 
ful because it is made without direct effort and 
attempt to blazon it abroad. There is a certain 
modesty and retiracy about the Christ life, and it 
loves to hide away from the glare and blare of the 
ostentatious world; but the veil of modesty behind 
which it is concealed becomes one of the loveliest 
of its manifestations. The light triumphs over 
concealment, and makes its very hiding places 
luminous; as the moon when it hides itself behind 
the veil of cloud, will sometimes turn the cloud 
into moon and get all the more revealed because 
of the covering on its radiant face. 


49 KEEPING THE FAITH 


We go on to remark that while the oppor- 
tunities of its manifestation are everywhere to 
be found, there are yet times and occasions which 
are peculiarly appropriate to its nature, and when 
it is specially required of the friends and fol- 
lowers of the Lord. Two of these have been 
brought to view in the Gospels of the Epiphany- 
tide. One was in last Sunday’s Gospel, which 
described a manifestation at a nuptial feast, and 
from which we infer that one of the occasions 
which suits it best is when the Christian is min- 
gling in society and engaging in its innocent fes- 
tivities. The first great act of our Saviour’s min- 
istry was to appear with His disciples at this wed- 
ding feast, and when there was danger that its 
brightness should be dimmed by the failure of the 
wine, He took pains to promote its cheer and fel- 
lowship by furnishing a new supply. He went 
not to the feast, as any worldly guest might go, 
simply to enjoy it, and then come away without 
leaving any impress of Himself upon it. He used 
it aS an opportunity of manifesting forth His 
glory. In it He confirmed the disciples’ faith 
and showed them that He came to ennoble the com- 
mon joys of men, and minister to their highest 
welfare and happiness. The disciple should im- 
itate the Master, and use all social occasions as op- 


KEEPING THE FAITH 43 


portunities for showing forth in simple, unostenta- 
tious ways the beauty and the grace of Christ’s 
religion. He is not required to withdraw from 
the world but to carry Christ into the world. His 
religion lays no ban on _ social enjoyments, 
but it undertakes the harder task of purifying and 
transforming them, and in the fulfilling of the 
task lies one of the chief manifestations of its 
power. How beautiful the manifestation is! We 
all know Christians who as they move in the social 
circle seem to shed forth the sweet odors of Christ, 
as from incensed garments, on all around. Their 
speech, their thought, their temper, their manner, 
are Christlike. They may be much admired in 
their persons or their gifts, but they never seem 
to be seeking admiration or social distinction for 
themselves, but rather to be winning tributes that 
they may lay at Jesus’ feet. They are never at 
any pains to foist their religion on others’ notice, 
but the Christ that is in them seems to shine forth 
without effort, in simple, quiet, unobtrusive ways, 
and at times when the observer is not expecting it. 
That is a most attractive and effective manifesta- 
tion of Christ, and that all Christian people who 
mingle in society should try, in their own degree, 
to make. But the Gospel for to-day brings an oc- 
casion of opposite character into view; and shows 


44 KEEPING THE FAITH 


our Holy Lord as manifesting Himself not on the 
bright days but the dark days of human experi- 
ence, days when a cloud of sickness, infirmity, or 
affliction has shut out the sunshine, and spread its 
gloom over the landscape of the life. Christ was 
ever moving amidst human sufferings and sorrows, 
and was continually making them the occasion for 
the manifesting of His sympathy and pity and 
power to heal. This His followers should also do. 
It is not only the marriage bell that rings in their 
opportunities, they also appear when the death bell 
tolls, and the hearse is standing at the door. 
Times of sickness, adversity, affliction are among 
the best seasons which the Christian has for show- 
ing forth the mystery of Christ, and as the sun 
is never more attractive than when seen in the set- 
ting of the vaporous clouds which separate its parti- 
colored beams, so the Christian’s light is never 
more beautifully manifest than when shining on 
the cloud of earthly sorrows or the rain of human 
tears. We cannot dwell on other opportunities for 
the manifestation, but they are everywhere to be 
found. The Christ mystery has all times and 
seasons for its own. It is ours to improve them, 
and let the Christ within turn the whole outward 
life into a luminous revelation of His Presence. 
We have many a great example, beside that of the 


KEEPING THE FAITH 45 


writer of the text, to illustrate the beauty and 
power of such revealing. What inspiration, for 
instance, there is in the example of England’s 
Queen, whose death is now so sincerely mourned 
by the larger part of the inhabitants of earth. 
What gave this noble woman the wondrous power 
of influence which she both consciously and un- 
consciously exerted, upon her subjects, and upon 
people of every land and clime and tongue? 
Surely, more than anything else, it was her un- 
studied, unaffected Christian character. It was 
because she was continually showing forth in sim- 
ple unassuming ways the Christ Who was en- 
throned as the Monarch of her heart. She mani- 
fested Him in the palace and the cottage of the 
poor, in the days of festal joy and the days of 
funereal sorrow, in the pomp and pageantry of 
public occasion and in the simplicity and retire- 
ment of domestic hfe. Let it be our greatest con- 
cern that we, too, in our own spheres, may mani- 
fest Christ as we ought to do. Christian, yours is 
the sublime dignity, the splendid privilege, of 
bearing Christ within you, wherever you may go, 
like as one to whom the beautiful and solemn 
charge has been committed. Hinder not the mani- 
festation of the Christ, by carnal thought and deed 
and work, but encourage it by spiritual culture and 


46 KEEPING THE FAITH 


endeavor. Thus you will become more useful 
than you know. When not suspecting it, good in- 
fluence will stream away from you on other lives. 
Others will take knowledge of you that you have 
been with Jesus,.and will perhaps be won to His 
love and service by the spirit which you shed 
abroad. 


SERMON V 


THE CHURCH A REVEALER OF GOD’S WISDOM 
TO THE HEAVENLY BEINGS 


Who created all things by Jesus Christ: to the 
intent that now unto the principalities and powers 
in heavenly places might be known by the Church 
the manifold wisdom of God.—Ephesians 3: 10. 


oe, Oe 


; HERE are few, I am sure, who are not 

ei sometimes oppressed by the thought of 
the insignificance of our little earth, 
and the unimportance of the beings who occupy 
it as their home. The thought comes to us with 
overpowering force when on these clear winter 
nights we look up into the starry sky and see the 
countless worlds which move along their shining 
tracks through the vast regions of illimitable 
space. The astronomer tells us that some of these 
worlds are many thousand times greater than the 
earth and that their distance from it is measured 
by millions upon millions of miles. Compared 


with the multitudes and masses of these mighty 
47 


eS 


48 KEEPING THE FAITH 


worlds, our own earth seems dwarfed into little- 
ness indeed. But if we turn the telescope on the 
starry heavens, and gaze at some of the nebule 
which are just visible to the unaided eye, we find 
that the pale brush of light opens out into multi- 
tudinous stars and suns and galaxies of ordered 
worlds, some of which are so distant from us that 
the light which they shed forth and which travels 
with inconceivable rapidity has taken long ages 
to reach our earth. In comparison with these 
vast and glorious orbs our world shrinks into 
much smaller dimensions still. And if we put 
the telescope aside, and allow our minds to fly 
along the pathways of light which it has opened 
but can only follow a little way; if we think 
of the suns upon suns, the systems upon systems, 
the galaxies upon galaxies which shed their im- 
memorial splendor on the vast solitudes of space, 
our earth seems to shrivel almost into nothing- 
ness, and there is brought home to us a crushing 
sense of the insignificance and vanity of human 
life. We put the question what place has the 
tiny earth in this stupendous universe? Is it 
anything more than a chance speck floating in the 
eircumfluent ether? Of what value is my little 
individual self, among the myriads of existences 
which may crowd the numberless worlds fitted 


KEEPING THE FAITH 49 


for them by the Author of the universal frame ? 
“When I consider Thy heavens the work of Thy 
fingers, the moon and the stars which Thou hast 
ordained, what is man that Thou art mindful of 
him? And the Son of man that Thou visitest 
him ?” 

The text I have read should help to correct our 
estimate of the significance of the world and of 
human life. It gives a reason for the existence 
of both, which star-eyed science never could dis- 
cover, but which, when accepted, ennobles science 
and emancipates it from its bondage to sense and 
material things. It shows that the true position 
of the earth in the cosmic scheme is not to be 
determined by the size of its continents, the mag- 
nitude of its mountains, or the breadth of its seas, 
but by the place it holds in the moral history of 
the universe. Not its bulk but its mission; the 
part it plays, in the unfolding of God to all 
created races, and in the spiritual evolution of 
them all, is what gives it its importance in the 
apostle’s view in the vast scheme of creation. 
Hear once more his words: ‘Who created all 
things by Jesus Christ: to the intent that now 
unto the principalities and powers in heavenly 
places might be known by the church the mani- 
fold wisdom of God.” The apostle here implies 


50 KEEPING THE FAITH 


that the raison détre, the true reason for the 
being of the world and of man upon it, is that it 
was wanted as a theater for the Incarnation of 
God’s only Son, and the establishment of the 
Church, His Body, upon it; and that He might 
use the latter as an instrument of manifestation 
of Himself to the whole created universe, that He 
might make known to its highest intelligences 
something of the riches of His manifold wisdom, 
which otherwise they could never know. We are 
thinking in this Epiphany season of the duty of 
manifesting God to those who know Him not; 
let the thought fly for a little time this morning 
beyond the narrow sphere to which we commonly 
restrict the duty and take in something of the 
broad scope of it which the apostle opens to our 
view. You and I are in God’s earth and God’s 
Church that we may make known to “the princei- 
palities and powers in heavenly places” some of 
the many aspects of “the manifold wisdom of 
God.” | 

I. The word translated “manifold,” in its lit- 
eral sense is many-colored; and it is in the apos- 
tle’s mind that the Church is a medium which sep- 
arates the rays of the divine wisdom, and shows 
them in their parti-colored beauty to the celestial 
beings. Just as the cloud, by untwisting the col- 


KEEPING THE FAITH 51 


ors of the light and showing them in the rainbow 
or sunset tints, gives to men new views of the 
nature of the solar radiance, so the Church by 
unravelling the beauties of the divine attributes 
discloses to the angels something which before had 
been hidden in the clarity and simplicity of God. 
We may go on to think first of the Church as man- 
ifesting the hidden wisdom of God in His creat- 
ing and redeeming the race out of which the 
Church is formed. 

If we can imagine a doubt of God’s wisdom as 
ever entering the angelic mind, it must have come 
when the earth was made and man was placed 
upon it. The dwellers in the heavenly places 
must at least have been perplexed with mystery 
when they saw God make a race endowed with 
the perilous gift of freedom, and sure to fall pros- 
trate before the first breath of temptation. 
Where was the wisdom in making a race which 
was no match for the powers of evil, and would 
soon take sides with them, in their rebellion 
against God? Why make a world which would 
be sure to break the harmony of the celestial 
spheres, and go on in its own wild, wilful, and 
ruinous career ? 

If the principalities and powers did not doubt 
the wisdom of creation, it was yet to them a hid- 


52 KEEPING THE FAITH 


den wisdom—the wisdom of God in a mystery 
which they “desired to look into.” And we may 
suppose that the mystery was greatly deepened by 
the revelation of the purpose to redeem our race 
from its fallen state. How shall the divine wis- 
dom accomplish the recovery and yet maintain 
the principles of its administration? Will not 
the forgiveness of man impugn God’s justice and 
breed discontent among the loyal subjects of the 
other races? May it not shake the very pillars 
on which the moral universe reposes? These 
questions were answered for the heavenly beings 
by the Incarnation and Death of God’s Beloved 
Son, by Whom humanity, which He represented, 
so satisfied the claims of the divine law, and vin- 
dicated the honor of the divine justice that it 
became possible for God without imperiling His 
moral government to be merciful to men. In 
the Cross of Christ, “justice and truth are met 
together, and righteousness and peace have kissed 
each other:’” and the great intelligences of heaven 
in looking down upon. it, learn more of the divine 
nature than they had acquired through all the 
long ages of their heavenly schooling. New at- 
tributes of God come into view; attributes which, 
without the fall and redemption of mankind, 
might never have been fully known to the lofty 


KEEPING THE FAITH 53 


minds above. There might then have been no 
occasion for their exercise. They would have 
existed in God as the prismatic colors exist in 
white light, but there might have been no medium 
to resolve the blended perfections and display 
them in their variegations to the created eye. The 
Church supplies the medium which separates and 
reflects the divine attributes and reveals to the 
adoring universe the mercy, the meekness, the com- 
passion, the self-sacrificing love which can bleed 
and die for the sinner. And so, when these high 
and holy beings look down on this far-off world 
and read in it the new revelation of God, they 
confess “in wisdom hast Thou laid the founda- 
tions of the earth.” This little world is a more 
wondrous manifestation of the many-hued wis- 
dom of its Maker than the mightiest sphere that 
rolls through the infinite spaces or the most bril- 
hant star that is set among the sparkling gems 
that adorn the diadem on the brow of night. 

II. But we must go on to remark that this is 
the mission of the Church at large only because it 
is the divine intent respecting each of its indi- 
vidual parts. Each of us, no matter how nar- 
row the life sphere, is a spectacle to the angels, 
and you and J are put in our places in this little 
world in order that we may be witnesses for God 


54 KEEPING THE FAITH 


to them, and manifest various aspects of the di- 
vine perfections which they can nowhere else 
behold. ‘I have created him for my glory,” He 
says of each one who is called by His name, and 
He expects us to manifest that glory chiefly in 
our life and character, and thus show to worlds 
on high what kind of beings His redeeming love 
and wisdom can produce in a world branded with 
insignificance and stained with sin. He expects 
us to vindicate His wisdom in creating us by 
showing how weak and temptable beings may go 
on from loss of innocence to perfection; how their 
conflict with trials and temptations may give them 
strength and tested perseverance, and adorn their 
characters with graces and virtues unknown in 
worlds where temptation and suffering are not 
experienced. The King’s daughter all glorious 
within stands in a vesture wrought about with 
divers colors, and they are such as nowhere else 
appear in the needlework raiment of the hosts of 
God. I do not mean to say that you and I can 
ever be superior in sanctity to these heavenly hosts, 
but that our sanctity is necessarily different from 
theirs; that God uses human nature as a theater 
for the display of virtues and combinations of 
virtues which have no place in their spiritual and 
unsinning life, and that we therefore may make 


KEEPING THE FAITH 55 


a revelation to them of God’s manifold wisdom 
and grace, which without us they could never see. 
Where, for instance, except on this dim speck of 
earth can they see the spectacle of a rebel against 
God laying down his weapons and returning in 
love and loyalty to his Father’s arms? Where 
else can they see illustrations of what is meant by 
penitence, forgiveness of injuries, patient endur- 
ance of wrong, a faith which holds on through 
cloud and storm because it sees Him Who is in- 
visible? Be sure that you manifest these and 
other like graces in your own peculiar lot, and 
with that tinge of your own personality which 
God intends you to give them; so that the heav- 
enly watchers shall not miss your own special con- 
tribution to the coat of many colors wherewith 
God has endued the human race. I have led 
your thoughts this morning into regions where 
perhaps they may not have been wont to go, but 
I have hoped that by doing this we might be 
helped to realize something of the breadth and 
grandeur of our mission as revealers of the mani- 
fold wisdom of God. Does not the thought of it 
redeem the earth from insignificance, and fill 
out the narrowest life to grand proportions and 
give it an import greater than we know? Oh, 
the dignity and sublimity of our high calling in 


56 KEEPING THE FAITH 


Jesus Christ our Lord! How, as we think of it, 
are we lifted up to a position where we can see 
the true significance of life, with its work and 
trials and struggles, as it runs into the deeps of 
eternity and is- lost in the immensity of God. 
Every good life is suited to be an angel’s theme. 
What inspiration, what strength, what content- 
ment should the high thought afford! What a 
new light it should shed down, as from stars un- 
seen before, upon the daily round and common 
task! How it should transfigure the humblest 
duty and ennoble the meanest and most contracted 
lot! 

Once more before we close let thought wing 
its way beyond our little earth and the narrow 
scenes by which we are environed. Let it pene-. 
trate the deeps of the sky, and fly past the mighty 
worlds and systems which science reveals as roll- 
ing in the immensities of firmamental space. Let 
it take in the multitudes of celestial beings that 
flash through the empyrean, and visit world after 
world on the errands of their God. As you view 
the principalities and powers, and various other 
orders which rise rank by rank to the very throne 
of the Eternal, and realize that the highest of 
them all bends down a learner of the humblest 
Christian child, tell me, can you go back to your 


KEEPING THE FAITH 57 


place on earth to live a narrow, sordid, sensual, 
burrowing life? Are you willing to be without 
the Church, elect of God to make known the 
many-colored wisdom; or being in the Church, 
are you willing to sell your birthright and relapse 
into a life of folly and sin? Is it not better to 
live as a true child of God, called to show forth 
His praise, and to waken the lyres of angels by 
your revealings of His wisdom and love? 


_ SERMON VI 
THANKSGIVING FOR THE HOLINESS OF GOD 


Give thanks for a remembrance of His holiness. 
—Psalm 97:12 


OLINESS is an attribute of God for 
| ad) which we are not always ready to give 

"~~ thanks. It is not as attractive to us as 
some of His other attributes and it sometimes 
repels us, and makes us shrink from the revela- 
tion which it makes of our own contrasted state. 
Our thanksgivings are naturally called forth by 
the thought of God’s love, mercy, and protecting 
eare, and our hymns are full of ascriptions of 
gratitude and praise for the unceasing stream of 
blessings flowing from them, but the thought 
of His holiness humbles us and demands that 
strains of penitence should be mingled with our 
songs of adoring praise. And yet when we come 
to think of it we cannot but see that it is God’s 
holiness that deserves the profoundest gratitude 


of His creatures, and that when our minds are 
58 


ry 





KEEPING THE FAITH 59 


in some degree conformed to His, we find it more 
easy and natural to respond to the appeal of the 
text. Holiness is seen to be an essential and 
fundamental characteristic of God’s being, im- 
parting to His other attributes their moral ex- 
cellence and value, and lending to them their last- 
ing charm and cheer. How profoundly and sur- 
passingly God’s holiness affects the minds of 
those who are nearest to Him and have the deep- 
est insight into the mysteries of His being is seen 
from the worship of the exalted ones who sur- 
round His heavenly throne. Think a moment 
of the cherubim to whom our liturgy continually 
uplifts our thoughts. On what in the divine 
nature do these mighty ones chiefly gaze, as with 
their eyes within they peer inquiringly into the 
innermost revelations of the Godhead? It is not 
on the manifestations of the power, the pity, the 
justice, the knowledge, or even the wondrous love 
of the Eternal One that their eyes are fixed, but 
on the primary attribute in which all others are 
merged, His infinite holiness. New revelations 
of the beauty and splendor of holiness are being 
continually made to them, and so they never tire 
of the endless theme but “rest not day and night, 
saying Holy, Holy Holy.” Neither should we, 
my friends, easily tire of the absorbing theme, for 


60: KEEPING THE FAITH 


if there be a God from Whom we come, to Whom 
we go, and in the knowledge of Whom standeth 
our eternal life, then the study of His being and 
character (which is theology proper) must have 
an exhaustless interest for us; and we can easily 
endure, even on a warm summer day, to think 
briefly of the holiness of God and of some of the 
reasons why we should give thanks for a remem- 
brance of it. 

J. Holiness. What is it? It is difficult to de 
fine, but we commonly think of it as freedom from 
sin or taint of evil, or more positively, as applied 
to God, as completeness of moral and spiritual 
purity and perfection. Originally the word did 
not have so high and full a meaning. The He- 
brew word for holiness springs from a root which 
means to set apart, make distinct, put at a dis- 
tance from, and when God is described as the 
Holy One in the Old Testament it is generally 
with the purpose of withdrawing Him from some 
irreverent conception of His character, or auda- 
clous presumption upon His majesty. The Holy 
One is the Incomparable. “To whom then will 
ye liken me that I should be equal to Him, saith 
the Holy One.” He is the Unapproachable ; 
“Who is able to stand before Jehovah, this Holy 
God.” He is the utter contrast of man: “I am 


KEEPING THE FAITH 61 


God, not man, the Holy One in the midst of 
Thee.” He is the exalted and sublime: “the 
high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, 
Whose name is Holy.” Generally speaking then 
holiness was equivalent to separateness, sublim- 
ity of being, and the Holy One is He Who is dis- 
tinct from man and his unworthy thoughts, and 
Who impresses man with the awful sublimity of 
the contrast in which He stands to him. Start- 
ing with this conception, the word came naturally 
in time to refer especially to that moral purity 
and perfection which it now suggests to our minds, 
and in which God’s chief distance and difference 
from man consists. Now let us for a moment 
imagine if we can that holiness is not included 
among the attributes of God. Let us suppose 
that it was left out of the list of the divine per- 
fections; that while possessed of wisdom, power, 
justice, love, God was without antipathy to evil; 
that He was tolerant and easy-going in His treat- 
ment of sin; that He was willing to forgive it 
without any compensation to His justice, or pro- 
vision for the moral improvement of the sinner. 
Do you not see that we would then lose respect 
for Him, that we would be robbed of a God Whom 
we could reverence, adore, love, and obey? It 
would reduce Him, if not to the low level of the 


62 KEEPING THE FAITH 


ancient heathen conceptions of Him, yet to a deg- 
radation almost unthinkable by the least illu- 
mined Christian mind. Furthermore it would be 
most disastrous in its effect on the moral condi- 
tion of His creatures. It is God’s holiness that 
makes sure that there will be a moral order in the 
world in conformity to which the welfare, safety, 
and happiness of human beings can alone be se- 
cured. It alone furnishes an absolute standard 
of what is right or righteous in human conduct 
and thought, and it insures that deviations from 
the standard shall meet with punitive or correc- 
tive penalties, which shall serve as a deterrent 
from wrong-doing, and a spur to virtuous action. 
Imagine what the world would be if there were 
no such standard of right and upright living and 
if it were left to variable human opinion to de- 
termine the difference between moral rectitude, 
and crookedness and vice. What discord, per- 
plexity, confusion, this would introduce! How 
fast the boundary lines between good and evil 
would disappear! How soon the sense of ought- 
ness would fade from the human breast, and how 
completely experience would show that schemes 
of ethics founded on expediency or common usage 
have no power to compel to right action. It is 
the loss of such a moral standard and a lowering of 


KEEPING THE FAITH 63 


moral ideals in the Teutonic mind that is chiefly 
responsible for the present cruel war, and should 
the loss become general, the foundations of every- 
thing good and dear would be cast down and 
there would be nothing to stay the floods of evil 
that would overspread the world. But from such 
a state of things God’s holiness is a protection. 
It was meant to operate continually as a restraint 
of evil, and a constraint to well-doing. It tends 
to purify all the courses of our human life, and 
is the guardian of human virtue, the promoter of 
public and private weal, and the protector of the 
sanctity and security of our hearths and homes. 
Such considerations afford good reason, surely, 
why we should give thanks for a remembrance of 
God’s holiness. 

II. But let us reflect still further, that this 
holiness affords a sure ground of hope for the 
ultimate triumph of every good and righteous 
cause that aims to further the purposes of the 
Holy One, and promote the moral progress of 
mankind. In the long battle between good and 
evil, there may be apparent defeats and setbacks 
of the good, but it is inconceivable that the things 
that contradict the holiness of God and defy His 
righteous government should at last prevail, and 
bring wretchedness and ruin on His whole crea- 


64. KEEPING THE FAITH 


tion. Righteousness, justice, love, shall wn the 
end win the day. And this, my friends, must be 
our ground of confidence in the mighty struggle 
in which we and our allied brethren are engaged 
on the war-swept plains of France, and in which 
the freedom, happiness, moral integrity of untold 
millions are at stake. You tell me that the forces 
of cruelty, hatred, devilish iniquity, have gained 
the advantage—but wait! there is a Holy God and 
let us see if we shall not yet have cause to give 
thanks for a remembrance of His holiness. May 
we not say that we have the same ground of hope 
with respect to the issue of the battle between 
good and evil which we, as individuals, are carry- 
ing on? There may have been defeats and dis- 
appointments in the long and arduous struggle, 
times when we have yielded to the force or lure 
of the enemies with which we must contend, but 
if after every failure, we have made penitent con- 
fession, and laying hold of the grace and help 
within our reach have renewed the conflict, de- 
termined to persevere till the end is reached, then 
surely we have good ground of confidence and 
hope respecting the issue of the struggle. Our 
poor endeavors will be in the line of the working 
and in harmony with the will of the All Mighty 
and All Holy God, and He will not let us fail of 


KEEPING THE FAITH 65 


victory. Are we not told that “this is the will of 
God even your sanctification,” and for the accom- 
plishment of this will has He not organized and 
empowered all the wondrous agencies and aids of 
grace included in the stupendous work of our 
redemption? To sanctify us, make us holy, He 
sent His Beloved Son to die for us, to rise again, 
and to ascend into heaven. For the same end 
He sent down His Holy Spirit to abide with us, 
and to apply the power and grace of the ascended 
Jesus through the ordinances of His Church. 
The end in view in all this was not simply that we 
might have forgiveness of sins, but be made 
positively holy. Nothing less can content us. 
Oh, my friends, we do not want to be forgiven, 
and yet continue in a state of sin. We do not 
ask to bask in the light and warmth of God’s love 
and yet harbor unholy thoughts, low desires, per- 
verse tempers, things amiss in the dispositions of 
our souls. We want to be freed from the things 
that humiliate and debase us; to have every black 
drop of evil purged away, and to become pure 
and spotless as the holy angels. That is what 
God wishes us to be, and what He has in view 
for us in the hard discipline and trying expe 
rience through which we sometimes have to pass. 
A parent once found it necessary to chastise his 


66 KEEPING THE FAITH 


little daughter, and when it was done the little 
one climbed into his lap, threw her arms around 
his neck, and said, ‘‘Papa, I do love you.” “Why 
do you love me, my child?’ the parent asked. 
“Because you try to make me good.” Have we 
the same confidence in God? Do we thus trust 
the wisdom of His parental discipline? And see 
in it the anguish of a brave, strong love, endeavor- 
ing to purge away the evil and make us grow 
in goodness? If the heart be set on the attain- 
ment of this end we shall welcome the hard, stern 
things we may have to endure, and remembering 
all that God has done, and is doing, for our good 
shall be able from our deepest souls to give thanks 
for the remembrance of His holiness. May God 
grant us all such a vision of the beauty of His 
holiness as shall captivate our souls, enchain our 
reverence and affection, and constrain us to an 
earnest, enthusiastic imitation of it. The first 
effect of the vision will be to make us cry with St. 
Peter, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, 
O Lord,” but along with the awakened sense of 
sin will be a deep, strong yearning for deliverance 
from it, and the attaining of something of the 
purity and beauty of which the vision of the 
Christ has shown our lack. The contrition which 
the Spirit of Christ awakens in the breast always 


KEEPING THE FAITH 67 
leads on to the prayer and endeavor to be Christ- 
like. It turns us into followers of the holiness 
which has humbled us; constrains us to that imita- 
tion of Christ which is the highest form of wor- 
ship. It is but natural to copy that which we 
instinctively worship, to try to make our own the 
things in another that call out our admiration 
and affection, and to see the beauty and glory of 
God in the face of Jesus Christ is to make the 
command, “Be ye holy for I am holy,” the most 
compelling mandate of our life. The musician 
whose soul has been visited by dreamlike melo- 
dies from other worlds is bound to try to repro- 
duce in his compositions or performances the mys- 
tic enchantments that have charmed his soul. 
The painter to whose inner sense the secret, subtle 
fascination of sleeping landscape, towering hill, 
or fretting sea has been made known is bound to 
put on canvas as he can the feature and color of 
the entrancing scene. The lover who sees in the 
object of affection a realization of the loveliness 
and nobility of which before he had only faintly 
dreamed, cannot but imitate the ennobling traits 
and gain something of the impress of them on His 
being. If God be the Eternal Archetype of all 
that is beautiful and pure and good in nature, 
art, and human life, if He be the highest and the 


68 KEEPING THE FAITH 


best of all that we can think, or reason, or imag- 
ine in our loftiest dreams, then what can we do 
but try to imitate Him as He is revealed to us 
in His Beloved Son, and become in some far-off 
way Godlike? May He give us all the heart to 
try, and to be satisfied with nothing less than to 
become partakers of His holiness. 


SERMON VII 
THE BODILY RESURRECTION 


If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from 
the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ 
from the dead shall also quicken your mortal 
bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.— 
Romans 8: 11. 


PAM © are thinking on this wondrous day not 
«6 only of the triumphant passage of our 


~~ Lord’s spirit through the grave and gate 
of death, but also of that of His body which 
shared in the victory, and arose in the power of 
the same invincible life. Easter commemorates 
not merely a spiritual survival, but also a bodily 
resurrection; and it is in the latter that its chief 
significance is centred. When we go away from 
earth we are forced to leave our bodies behind us. 
Had our Lord done the same, had He left His 
Body in the rocky sepulchre and simply passed 
majestically away in spirit, none would have seen 


His heavenward flight, it could only have been a 
69 


70 KEEPING THE FAITH 


matter of faith (like the transit of our own 
friends to the unseen world) and no new light 
would have been shed on the nature and condi- 
tions of the life beyond the grave. We could 
hardly refer to the event as even an additional 
proof of the immortality of the soul; for as it 
had no witnesses, it would possess little evidential 
value; and it would commonly be viewed as only 
one more probability which might in argument 
be adduced in support of the belief. But thanks 
be to God we have a more solid basis for our 
faith. In the case of our Lord we have an actual 
visible instance of a human body and soul arising 
from the grave in one and the same act of resur- 
gent power, and although changed in some re 
spects, yet preserving their identity, and after 
tarrying for a brief space on earth, passing to- 
gether into a nobler state of existence. Now this 
is a fact of immense importance to us all. It 
has vast significance for us, as human beings 
whether considered as individuals, or as collected 
together in a race, and I would like to think with 
you this morning of two or three of the points 
of universal human interest involved in the fact 
that our Lord arose and still lives in a body; 
points which are sometimes overlooked but which 
if duly considered ought greatly to widen and 


KEEPING THE FAITH 71 


deepen our Easter joy. Assuming the truth 
which the Scriptures everywhere imply that our 
Lord’s Resurrection was the type or norm of that 
in store for those in union with Hin, it gives 
us first the assurance that our future state of 
being shall be an embodied one and shall preserve 
its identity with the one of which we have pres- 
ent experience. That I am sure is a welcome 
thought to most of us. We generally shrink from 
the idea that we shall live on as purely spiritual 
existences, “naked shades, ghostly beings without 
palpable substance, or subsistence,’ and without 
sense of continued personality. “Not that we 
would be unclothed but clothed upon” is the nat- 
ural preference of beings such as we; and it would 
be disappointing to us to find hereafter that we 
are to be deprived of any sort of investiture, that 
our human nature had been turned into some- 
thing strange and unfamiliar, and through loss 
of the body had forfeited its former intimate con- 
nection with the material world. From such an 
uninviting prospect the Resurrection of our Lord 
delivers us. It gives us the assurance that in the 
new stage of existence our relations to the mate- 
rial universe will not be sundered, but will be 
transfigured, that they shall become more friendly, 
more spiritual, more completely adapted to the 


72 KEEPING THE FAITH 


uses of the fuller and larger life on which we shall 
then enter. We shall have bodies of finer mould 
and more ethereal texture; bodies delivered from 
the limitations and infirmities of our present ones, 
made strong, masterful, incorruptible, and _ per- 
fectly subservient to the volitions of the glorified 
spirits which shall indwell them. We can have 
no adequate conception indeed of the power and 
splendor of the future body. The Scriptures give 
us but one thrilling thought; they shall be lke 
the glorious body of the Risen Lord. ‘It doth not 
yet appear what we shall be, but we know that 
when He shall appear, we shall be ike Him for 
we shall see Him as He is.” Surely it is a mat- 
ter of supreme interest to our humankind that the 
nature peculiar to our race is thus to be preserved 
in its full integrity without loss of either of its 
essential elements, and is to be advanced to a 
higher stage of development than it yet has 
reached; we could hardly endure the thought 
that the race to which we and all our dear ones 
have belonged, within which our own life history 
and theirs has all been written down; which con- 
tains in its annals the story of all the generations 
with their hopes and fears, their struggles and 
defeats, their loves, longings, joys and tears; 
which comprises also the sacred story of the In- 


KEEPING THE FAITH 73 


carnation and the Cross—we cannot brook the sug- 
gestion that the nature so near and dear to us 18 
to come to an end, or be so changed as to lose 
its differential mark; but this we need not for a 
moment entertain. The continued existence of 
our Lord gives assurance that the race shall live 
on with its genuine and personal identity unim- 
paired and that it shall gloriously fulfill the great 
purpose of God in its creation. And what was 
this? Why, instead of making another race of 
purely spiritual beings, like the angels, did God 
create one with material bodies which link them 
closely with the lower orders of creation? Was 
it not because He wanted a race which should 
mediate between spiritual and material beings, 
which should go between them, fill up the gap by 
which they were separated, gather them into one, 
and through the intermediary bring the material 
closer to Him, and make it more amenable to His 
spiritual touch? Before the creation of man 
there were suns and stars and mighty worlds roll- 
ing in silent splendor along their tracks of light, 
there were many forms of animate existence in 
them all, but there was nothing fellow to God in 
their being or substance. He could not communi- 
cate with them, neither could they respond to 
Him. He could not tell them of His love nor 


74 KEEPING THE FAITH 


could they articulate His praise. But through 
man they might be reached. Man might be akin 
both to them and God, might sum them up in His 
own being, become as it were the high priest of 
creation, give intellectual and vocal expression to 
its unsyllabled hymns, and acceptably offer the 
incense of its praise. He might be the forerun- 
ner of the great divine and human Mediator Who 
eternally represented the man type in the God- 
head, and Who when man fell away from God 
came forth from eternity, took our human nature 
on Him, cleansed it of its sins, made a perfect 
at onement between it and its God, and restored 
man’s competency to fulfill the duties of his medi- 
atorial office. Two things were necessary to give 
man the proper qualification for his task as medi- 
ator. He must first be made readily receptive of 
the communications which God would make to 
him, and then be capable of imparting them to 
others. He must be able both to know and mani- 
fest God. For neither branch of his work would 
he be properly equipped if he were destitute of 
a body. We all know how dependent we now are 
on bodily organs for our knowledge of what is 
outside of us, and if we had no sense perceptions 
we would have no cognizance of the external 
world, our knowledge would be confined to what 


KEEPING THE FAITH 15 


might pass through our own minds, our inlets of 
knowledge of the things without us being closed, 
we would be cut off from all the avenues of en- 
joyment now open to us in the natural world. 
We would know nothing of the beauty of the pur- 
ple mountains, the blue ocean, the flowering fields, 
or the sunset’s golden glow. We would be stran- 
gers to the charm of music, the embrace of friend- 
ship, the confidence of the lover, and the laughter 
of the child. The mystic melodies of creation 
would be unsung for us; nature would cease to be 
a revelation of God to beings who could neither see 
nor hear, and it would lose altogether its sacred 
symbolic, and sacramental character. Not only 
religion but art would be without the dream and 
vision of the uncreated beauty most ancient, yet 
for ever fair. We have no right to assume that 
it will be otherwise in the life beyond the grave. 
If in the future state we should have no faculties 
corresponding to these sense perceptions, and of 
which they perhaps are prophetic anticipations, 
rudimentary beginnings, does it not seem probable 
that we would be in a like state of privation, 
would feel ourselves out of correspondence with 
our heavenly environment and have no eyes to see 
the beauty and glory of the celestial scenes or hear 
the entrancing strains of the unearthly music that 


76 KEEPING THE FAITH 


floats through the eternal arches as the redeemed 
hosts unite in the praises of their God? Oh, how 
glad and thankful we should be for the hope and 
the faith which the Resurrection and Ascension 
give that our bodily faculties and powers shall not 
hereafter be destroyed but be spiritualized, re- 
fined, set in more perfect relation to God and 
heavenly things, and made infinitely more sensi- 
tive to the impressions which God may wish to 
make upon us, and more capable of growth in His 
knowledge, love, and in the joy and power of 
Godlike service. And may we not add in the 
ability to manifest Him, to make Him known to 
others? For this, as we have said, is the most 
essential part of our mediatorial office and task. 
He has created and will preserve our human na- 
ture because He needs it as a medium for the ex- 
hibition of Himself, His attributes and works, to 
both the terrestrial and celestial races. That He 
might become such a medium was the great reason 
why the Divine Mediator, the Eternal Son, took 
our human nature upon Him. He wanted to 
manifest God to those who found it difficult to 
apprehend Him, and we, in our own degree, are 
wanted for the same high and holy task and God 
has specially planned and formed our nature with 
reference to it. There is no part of that nature 


KEEPING THE FAITH cae 


that cannot be used to make God known. The 
thoughts of God may be made to pass through our 
human brains and thus acquire a human quality 
and intelligibility which they would not otherwise 
possess. ‘The attributes of God, His love, mercy, 
benevolence, compassion, may all be shown on the 
mirror of our human life by deeds which human 
hearts and hands unite to do; and sometimes on 
the faces, as well as in the lives, of those who have 
long wrought such loving deeds, resemblances to 
the Holy Lord are stamped. Have you never 
seen them in your friends? Have you never 
seen them in the dead? O my friends, wrapped 
in our human nature are various Christlike fea- 
tures potentially possessed, and only waiting for 
proper conditions to come into being and mani- 
festation. Are we using our human nature to 
make God known to others, or only for the selfish 
ends to which it may be devoted? O let us use 
our present hfe as a training school for the 
higher uses of the immortal powers, to which as 
sons of God and mediators we are called. We 
may think God will have use for those powers 
through the endless ages of eternity. We may 
think of the beloved dead who seem to crowd 
around us on this sweetly sad and solemn day as 
engaged in the work of manifesting God, and as 


78 KEEPING THE FAITH 


doing it far more fully and effectively than they 
could’in the days of their flesh. Even then, they 
and we were teachers of the angels, and had the 
sublime mission of showing unto the principalities 
and powers in heavenly places the manifold wis- 
dom of God; but now, under the leadership of the 
Eternal Son Who has borne their human nature 
into the highest heavens, they have become better 
revealers of the many-colored wisdom, and more 
perfect examples to the angels of what, for an in- 
ferior race, the redeeming love and grace of God 
can do. God grant that we may hereafter join 
them in their blessed work, and that we and they, 
clad in the full powers of the Resurrection Body, 
may together exemplify the graces and works 
which God had in view for us when He created 
our nature, and stamped it with the image of His 
Eternal Son. 

But we cannot enlarge upon our theme. It is 
too great for us. It is of such universal signifi- 
cance and yet of such intimate individual concern 
that it would seem impossible to find thoughts or 
words with which suitably to unfold or apply it. 
How can a feeble voice of one of the humblest 
members of the race, speaking to a group of wor- 
shippers in a retired part of Christendom, worth- 
ily express the thoughts and emotions awakened 


KEEPING THE FAITH 79 


in the universal heart of humanity by the return 
of the day which commemorates the Resurrection ? 
It is a season of unmeasured interest to every in- 
habitant of the round world, and it should be 
kept with triumphant joy and thankfulness by all 
nations, peoples, languages, and tongues. It 
should be considered as a race celebration; as 
commemorating the events by which the preser- 
vation of the human family, among the other 
families of God, was guaranteed and effected. We 
all know what a cause of rejoicing it is when a sin- 
gle nation whose existence has been threatened 1s 
preserved from destruction, made sure in the en- 
joyment of its chartered rights, and in the work- 
ing out of its providential destiny; how much 
fuller, grander should be the tribute of the great 
international family whose place has been secured 
among the other races of the universe, and whose 
eternal salvation has been wrought, potentially at 
least, by the splendid victory of their mighty De- 
liverer and Head. Where shall we find words 
properly to express our thankful feeling? Where 
is the chorus large enough, the organ noble 
enough, the symphony harmonious enough, to in- 
terpret the emotions or voice the praises of the 
universal human heart! Fetch the loud cymbals; 
bring hither the tabret and the harp. Bring flow- 


80 KEEPING THE FAITH 


ers and symbols of victory to decorate the sanc- 
tuary in which the triumphant Lord vouchsafes 
His Presence. Let the dead unite with the living 
in the offering of worship and praise. Awake 
and sing ye that dwell in dust. 

“Thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth 
shall cast out the dead.” Yea, from the multi- 
tudes of voices that lie silent in the grave let the 
sad, still music of humanity give place to-day to 
the songs of hope and joyous expectation. From 
the millions upon millions of those who sleep in 
dust, and who make “all that tread the globe to 
be but a handful to those who slumber in its 
bosom,” from untimely graves in country church- 
yards and crowded cities of the dead, from crypt 
and trench, from sculptured tomb and unmarked 
mound remembered only by Him Who covers it 
with the bloom of spring, let the song and prayer 
of humanity ascend, and plead in union with the 
heavenly intercession that the time of waiting 
may be short, that the promise may soon come 
true, “together with my dead body shall they 
arise.” In Christ shall all be made alive. He 
that raised up Jesus from the dead shall quicken 
your mortal bodies “by His Spirit that dwelleth 
in you.” 

In the sacramental service of Holy Commun- 


KEEPING THE FAITH 81 


ion in which we shall now engage we draw nearer 
to the beloved dead than we can in any other way, 
for in it we come to meet Christ, and they are in 
Christ, and, meeting Him, we come close to them 
also to whom they are mystically united. We 
need not think of His sainted ones as altogether 
unclothed spirits, but as having so put on Christ 
that they are already covered with the covering 
of His spirit and have the promise and potency 
of a fuller and more splendid investiture in the 
last great resurrection day. God grant that in 
the consummation we, with them, may attain to 
the perfection of the Christ image and the full 
possession of the powers of the Christ life; and 
that we may be permitted to work together in the 
future ages for the fulfilling of His splendid 
purposes of love and grace for our human race. 

To Him be all the glory of our race and per- 
sonal salvation. Alleluia! Let heaven and 
earth unite to say: ‘Alleluia! Sing to Jesus. 
His the triumph—His the victory alone!” 


SERMON VIII 
ETERNAL LIFE 


These things have I written unto you that ye 
may know that ye have eternal life-—I John 
5:13. 


Y nA HE writer of these words himself possessed 
Gy the certitude of which he speaks, and he 

wants his friends to share it with him. 
His absolute certainty about the future life is not 
commonly attained, and it is encouraging to know 
that it is possible. When questioned about it men 
often say, I hope, or I think it probable that there 
is a life in store for us beyond the grave, but they 
go no further. That is their limit. But here is one 
who says I know. He has passed beyond all doubt 
or suspicion of the matter and has reached a full 
assurance of the reality of the fact or truth of 
which he speaks. His testimony is given at a 
time of life when early opinions have to undergo a 
strain, and show whether they are strong enough 


to sustain the weight of years with their accumula- 
82 


SS 


KEEPING THE FAITH 83 


tions of wisdom and experience, and his long cher- 
ished conviction proves equal to the test. It is 
yet to pass through another time of crisis which is 
drawing near when the soul, the spirit, shall 
gather up its powers for the final plunge into the 
vast, mysterious unknown. How will it be then ? 
Is there no danger that the soul may then lose its 
confidence and fall from God? Oh, the frail 
barque of life has encountered many a peril in 
the long voyage over the tempestuous sea, but now 
just before reaching the wished-for haven is near- 
ing the breakers which roll and roar along the 
rocky coast, and mean swift destruction to the ves- 
sel caught in their resistless sweep. But lo! to 
the watchers on the shore the night winds bear the 
cheering message (from the imperiled ship), “We 
are safe. Thank God the anchor holds. We hope 
soon to come through this final test of our en- 
durance and be in port, and greet again our fam- 
ilies and friends.” Another instance of complete 
certitude about the future is that of the aged 
apostle, St. Paul, who, as the end of life drew 
near, could say with perfect confidence, “I know 
Whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He 
is able to keep that which I have committed to 
Him against that day.” He was always being de- 
livered unto death for Jesus’ sake, but could still 


84 KEEPING THE FAITH 


say, nevertheless, “I live,” and when death actu- 
ally came he felt sure that he should receive the 
crown of life promised by the Lord to all who loved 
His appearing. On such instances of strong and 
stalwart faith our own more weak and wavering 
faith may lean and be helped and strengthened by 
the support they are fitted to impart. I have been 
thinking much of them of late, as my own life 
term is drawing to its close, and I wish, my dear 
friends, that I might share with you on this Easter 
morning something of the sustaining influence they 
have had on me. God wants us all, whether young 
or old, to have a comfortable assurance of the 
eternal life He has provided for us, and so let us 
think together on this glad day of the nature and 
conditions of the certitude it is our high privilege 
to attain. And let the words of the aged and be- 
loved St. John, read as my text, be the guide and 
limit of our thoughts in our brief consideration of 
the subject. “And this is the record that God 
hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in 
His Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and He 
that hath not the Son hath not life. These things 
have I written unto you that ye may know that 
ye have eternal life and that ye may believe on the 
name of the Son of God.” TI think the first thing 
that must strike us, as we think of these words, is 


KEEPING THE FAITH 85 


that the certitude they express is not grounded on 
reasoned proofs of immortality, on arguments spun 
out of our minds or collected from outside sources, 
but is based on belief in a living Person Who is 
the fons et origo of eternal life, and Who has al- 
ready communicated it, in its beginnings, at least, 
to those whose beings are open to receive it. The 
proof of it is in the personal present possession of 
it by those who are in union with its Source and 
Giver. It already moves and leaps and thrills in 
vital currents in their mortal frames as an earnest 
of a fuller and more blessed possession of it in the 
future. The apostle speaks of the life as eternal, 
not necessarily meaning by the word that it will 
be everlasting, although this will certainly come 
true, but he is not here conceiving of life in its 
durational or futural relations but in its present 
essential character or condition. He is thinking 
of it under the nation of its quality, not quantity, 
and regarding it as eternal because it is the life 
of a Being Who is immutable and eternal; Whose 
existence is without the change, fluctuation, or suc- 
cession which belongs to time and, of course, can 
never cease to be. That life imparted to man’s 
spirit causes it by nature to be eternal and ever- 
lasting. Immortality is of its very essence. We 
know that the breath or spark of it in us can 


86 KEEPING THE FAITH 


never perish. It belongs to an order of life in- 
finitely superior to that which can be measured by 
the hands of a clock or the revolutions of a planet, 
and will continue to exist and function when suns 
shall cease to roll arfd time shall be no more. But 
the spirit is not the whole man and it is in the 
apostle’s mind that the body shall also share in 
the eternal life of which he is speaking; that im- 
mortality pertains to the whole of human nature 
(undivided and complete) as God created it, and 
intended it evermore to be. As the Father hath 
life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to 
have life in Himself; and as the life is mediated 
and conveyed to us through the Incarnation of the 
Son, it follows that he who hath the Son hath 
life, and hath it just as the Son possessed it, in 
body as well as in spirit, both feeling the touch 
of the same all-quickening life. That touch of 
the Son on our mortal bodies puts a resuscitative 
power in them which shall enable them to over- 
come death, and after a temporary submission to 
its claim to rise up again resurgent from the 
grave, with the finer more ethereal faculties and 
powers they will need as instruments for the ex- 
pression of the life of the immortal spirits which’ 
shall indwell them. It was to prepare our bodies 
and souls for this high destiny that our Lord took 


KEEPING THE FAITH 87 


upon Him our flesh and in it died and rose again, 
as we are reminded whenever in the great Sacra- 
ment of the Incarnation we pray that the Body 
and Blood of the Lord may preserve our bodies 
and souls unto everlasting life. And so, my 
friends, to have the assurance of the life eternal 
we need first of all to have Christ un us as the hope 
of Glory. Then we have the witness of it in our- 
selves. We have something more than a rational 
certainty of it or even a moral certainty, we have 
a certainty which we may term empirical, founded 
on a subjective experience inwrought into our very 
life and being and of which nothing in heaven or 
on earth can rob us. And having this there is no 
need that we should go further and search for other 
proofs of immortality, seeking them, for instance, 
in the intimations of it which are found in nature, 
history, literature, or the deeps of the human heart. 
None of these are absolute proofs, they are only 
of the nature of probabilities and presumptions, 
which incline the mind to belief but still leave 
room for doubt; yet I must confess that to me 
some of them seem so convincing as to furnish 
ground for moral certainty, which is a probability 
sufficiently strong to justify action upon it; and 
one of these which I have always esteemed as a 
corroboration of my own faith is the universal in- 


88 KEEPING THE FAITH 


stinct of immortality implanted in our nature, and 
which is found among people of all ages and all 
climes, and on which many of the wisest and best 
of our race have leaned. You remember how Ad- 
dison speaks of it when he makes Cato say in his 
soliloquy : 


“It must be so, Plato, thou reasonest well, 

Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, 
This longing after immortality ? 

Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror 
Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul 
Back on herself, and startles at destruction ? 
Tis the divinity that stirs within us: 

Tis Heaven itself that points out a hereafter 
And intimates eternity to man.” 


Various are the presentiments of the eternal life 
which are lodged within us, and when we look at 
the outside world we see signs and symbols of the 
resurrection on every side; they appear in the up- 
rising of seed and plant from their winter erave, 
in the covering of meadow and forest in their 
mantle of green, and in the bursting of buds and 
bulbs into the chaste sweet flowers which we bring 
into the church as emblems of the resurrection ; 
but beneath all such representations of it, is the 
great, solid fact of the Resurrection of the Lord, 


a s 


KEEPING THE FAITH 89 


which calls forth the alleluias of the Church 
throughout the world, on this glorious Easter Day. 
That is the basis of our faith. That is demon- 
strative evidence, that gives an actual, visible in- 
stance of life encountering death in its most de- 
structive form, yet overcoming it, and reappearing 
on the other side of the grave with all the powers 
of soul and body preserved, re-invigorated, and en- 
dued with immortal strength and glory. In all 
this, Christ was but the Leader and Representative 
of the humanity whose flesh He had taken, and 
“in Him shall all be made alive.” And so, my 
friends, having such actual demonstration of the 
truth in the Resurrection of the Lord, and hav- 
ing even in our trembling frames something of the 
power of the resurrection life, may we not rest 
content, and say ‘with full assurance yet with un- 
feigned humility, “We know that we have eternal 
life,’ unworthy of the gift as we feel ourselves 
to be, and pray that we may never forfeit the 
unspeakable gift. O, beloved, nothing can be 
more important for us than that we should have 
and keep the gift of eternal life, and I want to 
say a few words about some of the signs which 
identify its presence and attest it as a genuine 
possession of the soul. (a) One of these marks 
is a certain power of survival and revival which 


90 KEEPING THE FAITH 


enables it to persist through all the changes and 
losses of our life experience, and to persevere 
to the end. There are few of us, I am sure, 
in whom the life course has been one of such 
steadily increasing vigor that it has known noth- 
ing of times of weakness or decline; most of 
us have been subject to periods of weariness and 
depression when the life powers seemed to be 
getting low and we have deeply felt the need of 
new supplies of strength from the spirit of the 
ever-living Lord; and if at such times we have 
always been careful to go to Christ with humble 
confessions of shortcoming and with the earnest 
prayer, “ ‘more life and fuller’ from Thy bound- 
less store,” then did we not recover ourselves, 
and although the vital powers may have seemed 
almost extinct, could we not say with the apostle, 
“Nevertheless I live,’ or with the Psalmist, “I 
shall not die but live and declare the works of the 
Lord?’ But if we have neglected to seek the new 
supplies of life the wondering Lord has addressed 
us with the sad remonstrance which He used of 
old, “Ye will not come to me that ye might have 
life,” and He puts to us the question of this Easter 
morning, “Why will ye longer stay away?’ (b) 
Another token of the eternal life is the possession 
of an immortal love. Love is of the very essence 


KEEPING THE FAITH 91 


of the hfe of God, and it must necessarily exist 
and persist in those to whom that life has been com- 
mitted. It must evince itself not only as an emo- 
tional affection, but as a principle of loving action, 
seeking by deeds of sacrifice and service to benefit 
and bless the objects of affection. The sphere of 
its influence may be wide or narrow, the life of 
beneficence may be like the broad lake whose shores 
touch vast stretches of surrounding country, made 
fertile by its touch, or like the little stream that 
runs through an enclosed meadow, and is only 
identified by the line of verdure which marks its 
course; but in either case it spreads beauty and 
fertility as it can, and keeps it up, year after year 
like the incessant flow of beneficence from the life 
of the eternal God. (c) Other tokens of the life 
within are an undying hope, and unfailing joy 
which remain when all other hopes and joys not 
founded on Christ have gone down like sunken 
wrecks to the bottom of the sea; and an unutterable 
yearning after purity which survives all taint and 
contamination, and never can be satisfied until we 
reach the spotless purity and holiness of the Lord. 
But we cannot dwell on these, and can only add a 
word about the sympathetic relation, which the 
eternal life within us establishes with other pos- 
sessors of it who have departed from our sight and 


92 KEEPING THE FAITH 


gone to a higher and nobler stage of its action. 
Oh, the beloved dead! How they seem to come 
back to us on these Easter days, and on this happy 
morning they come in larger numbers than ever 
before. None of-them come as strangers, all are 
brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, all are joined 
together by the network of the common experi- 
ences and associations which constitute in part the 
communion of the saints, and especially by the 
joint participation of the eternal life won for us by 
the Risen Lord; and they have come back to re- 
vive the sacred associations, to make sure that we 
shall not forget them as they do not forget us, and 
that we may rehearse together the lauds, thanks- 
givings, and joyous services belonging to the per- 
fected state of fellowship and communion in the 
better world. Oh, they seem very near to me on 
this reunion day! I do not feel like an old friend 
and college mate who speaks as one sitting in 
life’s gloaming and metaphorically whispering for 
the shades of departed friends, and getting only 
in response the sighing of the wind that bore them 
away. I feel rather like one who can touch the 
spirits and hear the voices of the loved and lost; 
and so, my friends, let all voices mingle in theirs 
as they with us gather around the riven sepulchre 
of the Lord and unite to sing the old Easter songs 


KEEPING THE FAITH 93 


of love and hope and joyous expectation. Some 
who hear my words will soon be called to join the 
invisible company of the departed. Ah, yes! 
Some of us have almost finished our life voyage 
and after passing the one remaining danger spot, 
our frail boat will enter the short passage to the 
eternal sea, and as we draw near it are there not 
loving friends who are watching and sending up 
the questions, ‘Brothers, do you feel safe? Does 
your anchor still hold, and cling closely to the 
things within the veil?” It would encourage the 
questioners if we had nothing better than the 
poet’s words for our reply: 


“Though from out our bourne of time and place 
The flood may bear me far, 
I hope to see my pilot face to face 
When I have crost the bar.” 


But there are words of deeper inspiration and 
stronger faith with which to make our answer. 
The pilot will be with me in the crossing. 
“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow 
of death I will fear no evil, Thou art with me. 
Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me.” “I know 
whom I have believed and am persuaded that 
neither life nor death shall be able to separate us 


94 KEEPING THE FAITH 


from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus 
our Lord.” 

O my friends and fellow heirs of eternal life, 
let us pray for each other, and ask that we may 
all have the lively hope of immortality that en- 
dureth to the end. And may He Who brought 
life and immortality to light by His Resurrection 
evermore strengthen the hope by fresh supplies of 
life imparted to us at our Eucharistic Feasts. 
May He, this very day, make us feel the blest 
reality of resurrection power, His Church’s dower 
in answer to the prayer: 


“Life more abundantly, 

Lord, give to me. 

Thy fullest gift, O Lord, 

Now at Thy feet, I claim 

Through Thy dear name! 

And touch the rapturous chord 

Of praise outpoured. 

Jesus lives. Our hearts know well 
Naught from His love shall ever sever, 
Life nor death nor powers of hell 
Tear us from Thy keeping ever. 
Alleluia !” 


SERMON IX 
WITNESS-BEARING TO THE FAITH 


Behold I have given Him for a witness to the 
people, a leader and commander to the people.— 
Isaiah 55: 4. 


er, ee 


; HE allusion in the text, as is shown in 

6; the preceding verse, is to David. It 
is not clear whether the reference is to 
the historic David, or the Messiah of Whom he 
was a type. In either case, his functions are 
transferred by the prophet to the people whom he 
represents. The thought continually passes from 
the individual to the Church: and the prophet 
means to say that this is also set apart to do the 
work of witness-bearing and leadership, which 
he has in mind. On the Christian Church which 
succeeds the Jewish the same twofold responsibil- 
ity is devolved. This is also called of God to be 
a “witness, and leader, and commander,” or 
authoritative guide of the people. In the dis- 


charge of the office each separate parish of the 
95 





US 


96 KEEPING THE FAITH 


Church has a part; and this morning let us think 
of our own share in the transmitted obligation. 
We shall thus comply with a custom of long 
standing which has devoted this Trinity Sunday, 
our parish name day, to a consideration of some 
aspect of our parochial trust and mission. 

I. First, then, we are set apart to be witness- 
bearers of certain things entrusted to our keep- 
ing for the benefit of the community in which our 
lot is cast. One of these is the old faith “once 
delivered to the Saints,” expanded in the Bible, 
and summed up in the Creed repeated in this 
morning’s service. This faith has chiefly to do 
with the Triune Being Whose nature and offices it 
is the main object of the Scriptures to reveal, and 
Whom they name as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 
Another thing is the worship of the Eternal Trin- 
ity through the reverent forms which are hallowed 
by immemorial use (transmitted to us from the 
early ages), and in which doctrine is turned into 
devotion, and belief into praise and prayer. 
Still another is the ancient order of the historic 
Church to which the custody of the faith and 
worship was committed, and by which the trust 
has been handed on from age to age. Of these 
things, then, we are to be witnesses; and we are 
to show them not as cold and barren tenets of an 


KEEPING THE FAITH 97 


unfruitful system, but as favoring abundant pro- 
ductiveness in good works, and coming to their 
fruition in holy character and conduct, known 
and read of all. ‘We are as a city set upon a 
hill” and the light we shed in witness-bearing can- 
not be hid. If we are to give effective witness to 
anything then we must be perfectly assured of its 
reality and truth—we must view it as so defi- 
nitely settled as not to admit of doubt or question- 
ing acceptance. Such certitude we should have 
with respect to the great truths or doctrines of 
the Christian faith, which are not to be regarded 
as opinions, conjectures or speculations on reli- 
gious subjects, but as truths or facts of a divine 
revelation—as things “delivered” not discovered, 
and therefore changeless as the Being from Whom 
they come. To be good witnesses we should have 
a solid, unshaken conviction that the things to 
which we give our testimony are absolutely true. 
The doubter is of no use in witness-bearing. He 
only spreads his doubts about the credibility of 
the matter of which he speaks. The Church has 
a perfect right to demand of its teachers that 
they should get beyond the position of mere in- 
quirers after the credenda of revelation and reach 
the state of assured belief: for while they re- 
main mere inquirers they can only teach their 


98 KEEPING THE FAITH 


own struggles and difficulties and do little to 
lead others to a solid faith. At the same time 
we should have the utmost sympathy with all 
honest inquirers, and none should be more ready 
to extend it than those who have passed through 
a period of similar questioning themselves. But 
how shall this certitude be acquired? We 
must, of course, use our minds in weighing 
the evidence of the truth, as this is given in 
Scripture and attested by the acceptance of the 
universal Church, but we must remember that 
belief is not the result of a mere intellectual proc- 
ess. It is also the response of the heart and spir- 
itual nature to truths which appeal to them as 
most credible, and as suited to their deepest needs 
and aspirations. The strongest and best faith 
is reached by putting the truth to the test of ex- 
periment by practical obedience, and the ex- 
perimental knowledge to which this leads. Take, 
for instance, the great truth of the Unity and 
Trinity of God, of which we are thinking to-day. 
The truest faith in this is reached not by any 
logical process, but by a life test, by applying the 
verities to the solution of life’s problems, the pur- 
ification of life’s conduct, the satisfaction of life’s 
needs; the answer they give to the yearnings of 
the spirit and the cries of the heart. Would you 


KEEPING THE FAITH 99 


believe in God as a Father? Then live as His 
sons and daughters, and see if He does not sat- 
isfy to the full your filial instincts, and answer to 
all the needs of your dependent life. Would 
you believe in the equal divinity of Jesus Christ 
our Lord? Follow and obey Him. Follow Him 
in the way of the Cross. Imitate His spirit of 
loving sacrifice, His daily giving for the life of 
others and see if that will not show Him as an 
equal sharer in the Father’s love and as the express 
image of the person. Would you have faith in 
the divinity of the Holy Ghost? Enter into fel- 
lowship with Him, open the heart to His love, and 
make proof of the value of His divine gifts and 
graces. By such a process we come to know 
God experimentally, and the verities respecting 
Him rest on a far firmer foundation than any 
mere external and untried proof, or speculation, 
could afford. We then believe not so much in 
intellectual conceptions or verbal statements of 
God’s being as in God Himself—the living, lov- 
ing, threefold person, as He is clearly set forth 
in the Seripture and the simple Creed of the 
Church; and possessing such a faith, we are pre- 
pared to be good witnesses of God, amid all the 
unrest and mutability of our modern time. We 
cannot do a better service to a people many of 


100 KEEPING THE FAITH 


whom are tossed hither and thither on the waves 
of uncertain speculation, who are in the state 
which Shakespeare describes as having “one foot 
on sea, one on shore, and to one thing constant 
never” than by furnishing an example of the 
strength and repose of a definite, stable, settled 
faith. 

II. But such settled conviction is not to be con- 
fused with a stiff, stubborn orthodoxy which, from 
mere obstinacy, refuses to change. It should be 
united to a certain teachableness which is ready 
to welcome any new truth into which the Divine 
Spirit may guide us, or any new light which may 
be thrown upon the old. The faith, which is fixed 
and final as a revelation, may admit of continual 
growth as a study: and we may be ever gaining 
a fuller and richer understanding of the truths to 
which we bear witness, and see more deeply into 
their infinite meaning. Side lights may be 
thrown upon them from various directions, and 
new discoveries of truth in other departments of 
inquiry may help to enlarge and enrich our con- 
ceptions of some beliefs conceived too narrowly be- 
fore. Thus we all know how splendidly the old 
doctrine of God’s creation of the world has been il- 
lumined and enriched by modern investigation: 
and how much more full and rich the doctrines of 


KEEPING THE FAITH 101 


God’s fatherhood, our brotherhood in Jesus Christ 
and fellowship in the Divine Spirit are becoming, 
as a result of present-day thinking. And so, we 
should cultivate open-mindedness, readiness to 
follow the Spirit’s finger points and to receive and 
assimilate any truth which bears His hallmark 
upon it. Rooted, grounded, settled in the old 
faith, we can without peril, follow any hopeful 
path which honest truth seekers may open to us, 
and return to the standing ground with the spoils 
of our adventure, and make the faith all the 
richer for the new contributions we have brought. 
If ever uncertain whether we are following the 
guidance of the Divine Spirit we can always ap- 
ply one sufficient test. No new truth into which 
He may lead can ever contradict or supersede the 
old truth which He has given, but must neces- 
sarily harmonize with, or complete it. If it gives 
us a fuller knowledge and vision of Jesus Christ, 
Whom it is the great object of the Spirit to glorify, 
we may trust the guidance which leads to it; if 
not, if it tends toward the denial that Jesus Christ 
has come in the flesh, we must distrust it, and 
decline to go that way. All truth is of God and 
must necessarily be harmonious, and knowing this, 
we may fearlessly and joyously enter any path 
of discovery. Cultivate a spirit of friendliness 


102 KEEPING THE FAITH 


to all progress, feeling sure that all advancing 
hght and knowledge will become ministrant to 
the faith we hold most dear. Such an attitude is 
certainly becoming in a parish which is situate 
in a great academic centre, and this let us ever 
be careful to preserve, holding ever to the old 
faith but growing in it, and exhibiting thus what 
one terms the “harmony of constant growth and 
unimpaired identity” which belongs to the true 
idea of the Body of the Lord. 

III. We can only mention one other part of 
our parochial responsibility, and this is to ex- 
emplify the practical effect of the old belief on 
fidelity and activity in all departments of Chris- 
tian service. We have already referred to the 
suitableness of the faith to produce zeal and per- 
severance, in good works, and one chief reason for 
this surely is, that it is the form of thought about 
God which makes it possible to conceive of Him 
as eternal love,—as having in His own being a 
provision for the reciprocal flow of affection :—and 
as love is always a principle of beneficent action, 
it becomes impossible to think about God under 
the triune form, without having the idea sug- 
gested—“‘beneficent service is Godlike,” and it 
is the highest privilege and duty of us all. The 
faith moves, as it were, in an atmosphere of love, 


KEEPING THE FAITH 103 


and inculcates love as the supreme principle. 
The most scriptural conception of the Triune One 
is that of a self-existent being, whose threefold 
personal powers are ceaselessly and concurrently 
employed in carrying on the order of the universe 
and blessing the inhabitants thereof: combining 
together in works of beneficence which are never 
done but are always doing: and, my friends, 
if we would be followers of God as dear children, 
we must imitate Him in this, and be working 
Christians: adopting the Lord’s words as our own, 
“My Father worketh hitherto and I work.” Un- 
der the constraint of love, we should be employed 
in the same helping, healing, instructing, restor- 
ing works which our Lord began in His earthly 
life and has left for us to finish. A parish is 
but a collection of God’s people who are banded 
together to do these works more effectively than 
would be possible if they were left to individual 
initiative. For what we have been able to ac- 
complish through our working societies in the 
past year, we may give thanks to the triune God 
on this memorial day, humbly beseeching His for- 
giveness for our shortcomings or omissions of 
duty, and asking for a larger measure of grace 
and strength for our future tasks. Much is ex- 
pected and will be required of us at the last. Our 


104 KEEPING THE FAITH 


parish is not one of the larger ones of the diocese 
or the land, but it has an importance greater than 
that to which its numerical strength might en- 
title it because of its opportunities, traditions, 
and strategic situation. It is planted in a great 
educational centre from which waves of influence 
are being thrown off in all directions, and to 
which it has the opportunity of making continual 
contributions. It ministers not only to the resi- 
dent people who at any time may be numbered 
on its lists but to generation after generation of 
students with alert and receptive minds, and to 
an ever-changing procession of people passing 
through it on their visits to the academic shrine. 
Just now the exigencies of the war are bringing 
fresh but fugitive opportunities to our doors, 
which we should be eager to seize before they 
elude our grasp; and so, my friends, we cannot 
but have something more than a narrow parochial 
consciousness and develop a diocesan and general 
consciousness wide enough to include the whole 
broad scope of our responsibilities. The leader- 
ship and commandership of the Church (of 
which the parish is a part) is being more and 
more felt by the people of our land and its guid- 
ance is being sought in some of the great reli- 
gious movements of the day, because confidence is 


KEEPING THE FAITH 105 


felt that its leadership will be safe, because it 
treasures the lessons of experience, and unites a 
wise conservatism to the spirit of progress, and 
when called to sail in new and untried seas will 
still hold on to the old principles of navigation 
tested by the ages. 

One of the most hopeful of these move- 
ments, which the laymen of the land are ea- 
gerly supporting, aims at the restoration of 
unity to the scattered branches of the flock of 
Christ, and this we should help and encourage as 
we can, and try to save it from shipwreck and 
failure. As we have opportunity we should lead 
our dear Christian brethren to see that the unity 
they seek cannot be a matter of human making or 
arranging, but that it is already divinely consti- 
tuted in the one Body of the Lord, indwelt by the 
one Spirit, and having one Catholic faith broad 
enough for all, and offering free access and move- 
ment to all, in the one divinely founded city 
which has twelve gates which are open continu- 
ally and every gate a pearl. Should we fail prop- 
erly to respond to such movement we would abdi- 
cate our place as leaders and commanders of the 
people, and become positive obstructionists of 
God’s work, for there is nothing so obstructive as 
leaders who will not lead, commanders who will 


106 KEEPING THE FAITH 


not command, Church bodies that load responsibil- 
ity, and decline to enter the doors toward which 
the Divine Spirit, the Finger of God points the 
way. ‘That finger is beckoning us to larger fields 
of usefulness, greater works of beneficence than 
we have accomplished in the past. May we have 
wisdom and grace to seize the larger opportunity, 
and fulfill the greater task. May we be fitted in- 
deed to be leaders in all the branches of work by 
which the Church is enlarged and edified, and in 
the endeavors by which the nation is sustained 
in the tremendous tasks laid upon it by the war 
it is waging for righteousness, liberty, home, and 
God. Surely we are providentially equipped for 
the future work. We are helped by the residence 
among us of our bishop (our diocesan leader 
and commander), which makes it easier to gain 
the larger vision which looks beyond the parochial 
hedge-rows, and gets a view of the vast fields on 
the other side; and the example he is setting of 
tireless energy and activity in all good works 
‘should surely be an inspiration to us, and pre- 
vent us from growing weary in well-doing. We 
are also greatly encouraged by the acceptance by 
our good brother of the invitation given him to 
become the rector of the parish, and thus be our 
parochial leader and commander in the cam- 


KEEPING THE FAITH 107 


paigns of the future. Let us all rally around 
him, as the old standard of the parish is once more 
unfurled, and let us ever show that spirit of unity 
and cooperation in good works which is illustrated 
in the constitution of the Thrice Holy One Whose 
name is inscribed upon its banner. 

We have been speaking of our corporate re- 
sponsibilities this morning, but let us remind our- 
selves that in God’s work it is personality that 
chiefly counts. It is the tendency of the old faith 
to develop the sense of personality in us, for it 
emphasizes the idea of personality as applied to 
God and teaches that we are persons because He 
is personal and triune. It is only through per- 
sons that the parish does its work, and so let the 
need of personal consecration be our last thought. 
On bended knee, beneath the sacred banner, with 
its memories of hard-fought fields and fallen 
comrades resting in their honored graves, let us 
all devote ourselves anew to the love and service 
of the Triune God, yielding Him all the powers 
of our personal life and asking Him to use them 
for the promotion of the honor and glory of His 
Ever Blessed Name. 


SERMON X 


CHANGELESSNESS OF GOD, A BASIS OF 
CONFIDENCE 


For I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore 
ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.—Malachi 8: 6. 


of God that Israel had not been swept 
away by fierce fires of judgment kindled 
in times of its past disobedience and forgetfulness 
of Jehovah, and on the same divine attribute it 
was encouraged to rely for its future security and 
continuance in being. If it would only repent, 
and re-accept the sanctions and obligations of the 
holy covenant, God would remember His part in 
the covenant and preserve the nation from the 
perils which threatened to destroy it, and use it as 
an instrument for the fulfilling of His purposes 
of love and mercy for the other nations of the 
world. Now, my friends, we do not commonly 
think of God’s immutability as furnishing the 


ground of our own welfare and safety. We are 
108 


Sse ND so it was owing to the changelessness 
Peer 





WAGKE 


3 


KEEPING THE FAITH 109 


much more apt to base our confidence on some 
of His moral attributes, rather than this natural 
characteristic of His being: we are more likely 
to trust in His love, His goodness, His mercy, 
His desire to benefit and bless His creatures, and 
yet when we think of it, we readily see that there 
must be an element of changelessness even in 
these moral perfections of God, else they would 
afford no certain basis of our trust. If we are 
depending on His love, then we must be sure that 
this is no changing inconstant sentiment or feel- 
ing but an ever-enduring affection, as lasting as 
the being of the Infinite and Eternal One in 
Whom it dwells. Whatever the attribute on 
which we may build, it will not answer as a sure 
foundation unless we know it to belong to an in- 
finite and immutable being, one of whom we can 
speak as “the same yesterday and for ever.” I 
do not think that we realize at all, as we ought to 
do, how much we owe to the changelessness of God 
in the various departments of our life and action, 
and it will be worth our while to think of the 
matter this morning, and try to gain a little more 
worthy conception of our obligation. Belief in 
this divine attribute is one of the certain postu- 
lates of our thinking, one of the basic elements 
of our very life and existence, and without it we 


110 KEEPING THE FAITH 


could not carry on the ordinary movements of 
our life, or have any foundation on which to build 
our science, art, civilization, or religion. Let 
us think of the changelessness of God, as this is 
shown in three spheres in which it is plainly man- 
ifested, namely nature, the moral government of 
the world, and our own individual experience. 
I. We speak of God’s usual method of work- 
ing in the natural world as laws; and these laws 
are fixed, or are uniform and constant in their 
operation, and have certain sanctions attached to 
them which it is our wisdom to obey. <A law is 
but a rule or customary manner in which certain 
effects are produced, and it must, of course, have 
a cause behind it, for a rule by itself can accom- 
plish nothing. The rules of navigation never 
steered a ship, nor has the law of gravitation ever 
moved a planet. We dare to put God instead of a 
fluid and unintelligent force behind the sum of 
effects produced in nature, and His regular and 
invariable modes of operation, as the one efficient 
cause, give us the constant and consistent system 
of things under which we live, and produce what 
we speak of as the order and harmony of the 
universe. To appreciate what we owe to this 
system, we have only to imagine for a moment, 
what would happen if it were broken up, and 


KEEPING THE FAITH TET 


one of disorder, lawlessness, haphazard should 
take its place. Suppose that the great fixed laws 
that control the movements of the heavenly bodies 
were suspended for an hour, and that sun, moon, 
and stars were free from the constraint and bal- 
ance of the forces exerted upon them; we al- 
most shudder at the confusion, the disaster, the 
ruin, this would mean for them. We should then 
have the dreadful reality pictured in the poet’s 
words when he writes of the wreck of matter and 
the crush of worlds. From the apprehension of 
such catastrophe the changelessness of nature’s 
laws delivers us. God has so ordered the natural 
system that when we lie down at night we may 
have a reasonable assurance that when we awake 
on the morrow we shall see the same sun that 
went down in golden glory, and that it will con- 
tinue to light our pathway throughout the day. 
The same moon will shed down its silver radiance 
on us, the same stars will give us songs in the 
night and elicit the same response of wonder and 
praise. The same birds will be in the tree tops, 
the same flowers will be springing from the 
ground beneath our feet. There will be the same 
procession of the seasons: the same time for sow- 
ing of the seed, the same time for the ingather- 
ing of the harvest. All things will move on in 


112 KEEPING THE FAITH 


the same orderly manner as they have in the past. 
And we may form plans for work, recreation, or 
study with good hope of their accomplishment, 
based on the unity and continuity of nature, as 
expressing the changelessness of its Author. 

II. But it is of a higher sphere than that of 
mere nature that I wish chiefly to speak, and let 
me direct your thought to the divine changeless- 
ness as displayed in the moral and spiritual gov- 
ernment of the creatures of His hand; and espe- 
cially of these as gathered into the families or 
nations of the world in which we find our home; 
and if we should associate our thought with our 
own nation, we shall but follow the leadership of 
the writer of the text who applies it to the sons 
of Jacob of whom he was one. We speak of a 
government as moral when it is conformed to the 
principles of moral goodness, and is so adminis- 
tered as to encourage what is right, and repress 
what is wrong. In it virtue is rewarded and 
vice punished, according to the principles of 
righteousness, justice, and wunerring wisdom. 
These principles are immutable; the laws by 
which they are expressed are as fixed and un- 
changing as are the physical laws of the uni- 
verse, and from them God, the all-wise Governor, 
has never swerved in His administration of its 


KEEPING THE FAITH 113 


affairs. This is, of course, for the well-being of 
the governed. We can easily see that if there 
were no certain standards of right and wrong, 
no penalties to serve as checks on evil living, no 
rewards to incite to right conduct (human nature 
remaining as it 1s), wickedness would pour in 
upon us like a flood, erime would everywhere 
abound, and the fair fields of human life would 
be reduced to desert wastes, full of things rank 
and poisonous, the home of evil beasts and with- 
out a flower to shed its fragrance on the pestilen- 
tial air. From the dread of such an awful state 
of things the changelessness of God preserves us. 
He is eternally and unalterably opposed to evil 
in its every form (it is a contradiction of His es- 
sential holiness) and He is ceaselessly employed 
in the endeavor to overcome it, and if possible 
turn it into good. He will not indeed use His 
omnipotence to destroy it and force His subjects 
into being good, for that would rob them of their 
freedom, and deprive Him of the only kind of 
service that He values. He will only use the 
moral means that comport with the nature of His 
government: employ moral teaching, warning, 
entreaty, discipline, the power of love, the sweet 
attractions of holiness, in the endeavor to stem 
the tides of wickedness, and extend the sway of 


114 KEEPING THE FAITH 


His spiritual kingdom, but on this it is not within 
our plan to dwell: the point before us is that God 
is committed by the changelessness of His char- 
acter and being to keep up the effort till it is 
crowned with complete success. His cause may 
have its changing fortunes, it may have its victo- 
ries and defeats, there may be pauses and even 
retrogressions in the march of humanity toward 
its predestined good, but the goal will be surely 
reached. It is the far-off divine event toward 
which the whole created system moves, and it is 
the unchanging purpose of our God that it shall 
be attained. I call upon you, friends and breth- 
ren, to have faith in the loving purpose of our 
God. There is much indeed in the present con- 
dition of things to try our faith. When we look 
at the condition of the world at large or narrow 
our view to our own land, we see little to sug- 
gest the idea of orderly and progressive move- 
ment into a higher moral state; we see much that 
speaks of disorder, destruction, retrogradation, 
and decay, civilizations crumbling, thrones totter- 
ing, the old order of things breaking up, and a 
new order full of ominous changes pressing in to 
take its place; we see our dream of the establish- 
ment of the kingdom of righteousness, unselfish- 
ness and love is as far from its realization as 


KEEPING THE FAITH 115 


ever; but, my friends, let us not give way to 
hopelessness or despair. Let us trust in the 
changeless God. We are bound as Christian peo- 
ple to have confidence in Him as the moral Gov- 
ernor of the world, and especially in Him as 
shown in the moral administration of the Gospel 
and the Church in which the Governor becomes 
incarnate and gives an example of perfect moral 
obedience, actuated and inspired by perfect love. 
It would be an act of disloyalty almost incon- 
ceivable in the Christian to doubt whether the 
Christ, Who is without variableness or shadow 
of turning, should persist in His gracious purpose 
to extend His beneficent rule over all the earth, 
but just that we are in danger of committing. 
I was talking a few days ago with a distinguished 
university professor, who said to me, ‘It seems 
to me as if Christians were losing their faith in 
God.” Let us take care lest we deserve that re- 
proach. Let us believe that He is still on the 
throne and has the course of the troubled world 
in hand and will direct it to a right issue. If 
we cannot say with Browning, “God is in Heaven, 
all is right with the world,” we can say with Ten- 
nyson, “O yet we trust that somehow good will 
be the final goal of ill,” and with St. Paul we 
know that “all things work together for good to 


116 KEEPING THE FAITH 


them that love God and are called according to 
His eternal purpose.” If we cannot be extreme 
optimists and say that the universe is the best 
that could possibly be produced, we should not 
fall into the error*of the pessimist, and say that 
it is the worst possible to thought, that all things 
are going to the bad, and thus help to spread 
the melancholy and depressing views of life which 
are favored by the conditions of the age, and 
which help to cut the nerve of all high and holy 
effort. It surely is our duty as Christians to cul- 
tivate a cheerful and hopeful spirit, to refuse to 
look only on the dark side of things, or to exag- 
gerate the evils of the national or world-wide con- 
dition, and try to discern the signs of promise 
which may certainly be found in the darkened 
sky. We may, at least, be meliorists and believe 
that things will soon be getting better and go on 
in the future to the best that God has in view 
for them. The course of the world may not be 
that of a gentle gliding river flowing smoothly 
on to a sunlit sea, it may be rather that of a 
rapid torrent, encountering rocky obstacles, and 
plunging over a precipice into the pool below, but 
God is in the waterfall as well as in the peaceful 
stream, and may gather together the raging waters 
in the pool for another flow through flowering 


KEEPING THE FAITH 117 


banks and fertile fields, and make them contribute 
to the harvest of the world. We may remember 
for our encouragement that moral and_ social 
progress has always been carried on through ecat- 
aclysms and that many a good cause has been 
advanced by means of them to a higher stage 
than it otherwise would have reached. We know 
not what overturnings and apparent catastrophes 
may be in store for us in the future, but they 
will not be out of the range of historic oc- 
currence or past human experience and in their 
final results they may be beneficial. Change, de- 
cay, the passing of the old and coming of the new 
have been the law of human life from its very be- 
ginning, and there is instruction as well as humor 
in the story of our first parents which makes 
Adam say to his helpmeet at the time of their 
expulsion from paradise, “Eve, it is certainly a 
changing world in which our lot is east,” words 
which had a far deeper meaning than they knew 
for they were making not only a change in place 
but also a change in moral condition. They were 
leaving the life of innocence for one of struggle 
toward moral perfection, a perfection gained only 
through trial, toil, temptation, and endurance to 
the end. That is the goal to which God is en- 
deavoring to conduct our race and let us not lose 


118 KEEPING THE FAITH 


confidence in Him nor in the Kingdom which He 
has established on earth. It is a time of unrest, 
instability, explosion, and wreck in the world 
around us but it begets a feeling of hopefulness 
and security to reflect that we have received a 
kingdom which cannot be moved, which no in- 
fernal bomb loaded with dynamic energy ever can 
destroy, and against which the gates of hell can- 
not prevail. And so let us say with the Hebrew 
singer, in all times of convulsion and upheaval, 
“God is our hope and strength: a very present 
help in trouble. Therefore will we not fear, 
though the earth be moved; and though the hills 
be carried into the midst of the sea. Though the 
waters thereof rage and swell, and though the 
mountains shake at the tempest of the same.” 
ITT. I have left no time to speak more partic- 
ularly of God’s unchanging attitude toward each 
one of us as individuals. Let me appeal for a 
moment to your personal life experience. We 
may say that God’s unchanging purpose with re- 
spect to each of us is expressed in the words, 
“This is the will of God, even your sanctifica- 
tion.” To further this end has been the object 
of God in all His dealings with us throughout the 
whole course of our lives. To wean us from sin 
and make us holy has been His aim in all His 


KEEPING THE FAITH 119 


chastisements, rebukes, and mercies. How pa- 
tiently, perseveringly, unremittingly He has pur- 
sued the aim, always near to us in times of trial 
and temptation to warn and guard us and keep 
us from falling; in times of loss and sorrow to 
turn the bereavement into blessing; in times of 
gladness to purify and elevate our joys. Some 
of us have passed through youth and manhood 
and have reached the verge of declining age. 
Has He not always been the same God through 
all the changing experiences of the fast-rolling 
years, the same loving, merciful, faithful God, 
refusing to leave us even in times of stumbling 
and sin, always speaking to us by His Holy 
Spirit, always giving us the same helps, the same 
promises, the same sacraments, the same joys of 
repentance, the same hopes of heaven and of per- 
fect sanctification in the world where the soiled 
and stained garments of the pilgrim are ex- 
changed for the pure robes of the Saints which 
have been made clean and white in the Blood of 
the Lamb? What shall be our response to the 
unchanging love and unceasing efforts of our 
God? Shall it be a fickle, inconstant, divided 
heart, and a service given with equal fervor to 
the world? Let this not be. Rather let us say 
with the Psalmist, “My heart is fixed, O God, my 


120 KEEPING THE FAITH 


heart is fixed. I will sing and give praise;” or 
with our own hymnist: 


“No change of time shall ever shock 
My firm affection, Lord, for Thee, 
For Thou hast always been my rock, 
A fortress and defence to me.” 


Do we sometimes doubt whether that blessed end 
ever shall be reached? There is so much of sin 
and earthliness still clinging to us. Shall we ever 
be free from it and attain the purity and perfec- 
tion for which we sigh? I asked myself that 
question, lately, and instantly there came into my 
mind the vision of a beautiful snow-white lily. 
Clearly it stood before me in its wondrous loveli- 
ness, purity and beauty and I said to myself— 
All that has come from a principle of life rooted 
in the cold, hard ground. If God can produce 
such beauty from a patch of dirt, can He not pro- 
duce the spirit and beauty of which it is a symbol 
from our own defiled and corrupt human nature 
by ceaseless action of His transforming Spirit? 
O what shall be the response to this question! 
“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; 
they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I 
say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory 


KEEPING THE FAITH 121 


was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, 
if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day 
is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he 
not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith ?” 


SERMON XI 
DISAPPOINTMENTS IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 


For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus 
hath made me free from the law of sin and death. 
—Romans 8: 2. 


MN NE of the causes of apathy in the religious 
@) life (especially among young or middle- 
aged folk) is disappointment about the 
results of it in their own experience. They have 
put the life to the proof through a longer or shorter 
experimental period, and they do not find that it 
has accomplished for them what the apostle here 
says itis able todo. They have been baptized, con- 
firmed, united to their Lord through faith and sac- 
ramental bond, and yet “the spirit of life,” of 
which they have been made partakers, has not over- 
mastered the evil tendencies of their lower nature. 
Their struggles with the law of sin within them 
have met with very limited success; and often at 
the very moment when they thought the tyranny 
was broken, have they again felt the rankling of its 


chains as they have succumbed to the power of 
122 


KEEPING THE FAITH 128 


some old besetting foe. This has been disappoint- 
ing. It is not what the Scriptures had led them 
to expect. Perhaps their disappointment has 
thrown them out of heart for future effort; they 
say to themselves it is but little use to try: and 
if they do not abandon their religious duties alto- 
gether, they go through them in a listless and in- 
different way. Beneath their relaxed energy and 
zeal may be a doubt (which they do not express, 
or more than half consciously entertain) whether 
Christianity really possesses the power of deliv- 
erance from sin which it claims to have. They 
do not formulate the doubt, it may be only a sus- 
picion lurking in the dark corners of the mind, — 
but it has its secret influence, and helps to produce 
the spirit of apathy which has settled down upon 
their powers. Perhaps the result would have 
been different if there had been a better under- 
standing of just what Christianity proposes to ac- 
complish for us in the present stage of being; and 
if there had been greater fidelity in complying with 
the conditions of a successful working of its grace 
and power. And so, let us first briefly inquire 
what the apostle meant when he said that the law 
of the spirit of life hath made us free from the 
law of sin and death. (1) And we first remark 
that the freedom to which he refers is not a present 


124. KEEPING THE FAITH 


deliverance from all sin. It is a part of our be- 
lief that there is an infection of nature even in 
the regenerate, and that, in consequence, there is 
a continual warfare between the regenerate and 
unregenerate parts of us, which will not wholly 
cease till the fever of life is over and our work is 
done. “The flesh lusteth against the spirit and 
the spirit against the flesh,” and it is not a part 
of the divine plan that the flesh should be so spir- 
itualized and transformed in the present stage 
of being that the antagonism should be no more 
felt. The flesh is not the seat and scene of the 
operation of the spirit of life. It is not the direct 
subject of regeneration. It cannot imperil the 
Kingdom of God. It cannot be reformed and 
made fit for the Kingdom till it is dissolved. It 
may and must be subdued, regulated, chastened, 
in the present life. It cannot be fashioned into 
the image of Christ till it is put off and swallowed 
up of life. Much of our disappointment in the 
Christian life comes from forgetfulness of this 
truth. We have an idea that the lower nature is 
to be altogether elevated, refined, spiritualized by 
the divine forces working in us, and when after 
years of experience we find that this has not been 
accomplished, when we find the same old carnal 
nature asserting its power, when we have to meet 


KEEPING THE FAITH 135 


the same temptations, infirmities, frailties that be- 
longed to our earlier life, we easily become dis- 
couraged, and perhaps begin to doubt whether 
Christianity can really accomplish the emancipa- 
tion from sin for which we yearn. But we ought 
not to forget that the time of complete deliverance 
is not now. We must wait for that till we reach 
another stage of being; and what we are now to 
look for, as one of the greatest of modern saints 
observes, is not an actual present gain, but a ten- 
dency toward a future gain, which, if we are faith- 
ful to the end, will surely be attained; and so our 
failures, while they should humble, should not dis- 
courage us. They should but make us the more 
determined to keep up the conflict till life’s sun 
goes down, looking continually to Him through 
Whose grace and strength the victory can alone be 
won. “To them that have no might He increaseth 
strength,” and trusting in Him we have grace to 
persevere. 


“And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long, 
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song, 
And hearts are brave again, and arms are strong.” 


(2) But while we may not now expect a full and 
perfect deliverance from the law of sin, there is 
one thing the spirit of life does accomplish for us 


126 KEEPING THE FAITH 


—it emancipates from the lower law, as an ac- 
cepted and cherished rule of action. The true 
Christian is a man who has renounced the serv- 
ice of sin in its every form, and in whatever de- 
gree its power may still be felt, it does not find in 
him a willing and consenting mind. ‘The motions 
of sin in him are involuntary, they are against 
his will, or if ever in a moment of surprise his 
will consents to them, he quickly recovers him- 
self and repents, and renews his holy resolutions. 
He not only does not mind the things of the flesh 
—that is, think and plan about their gratification 
—but he either forgets them, or takes active means 
for their suppression. Sin is not a power that 
holds his affections, controls his choices, or forms 
his principles of conduct. It is a thing that he 
repudiates, disowns, and wishes to be done with 
altogether; and in place of the old hated service, 
he has put the service of the Lord Christ, which 
engages all his powers, affections, desires, and de- 
terminations. To persevere in this attitude of op- 
position to sin, and choice of righteousness, is the 
great duty of the Christian. So long as he is 
doing this through all the chances and changes of 
life’s battle, he has no reason for disheartenment 
or fear. Let him not question the reality or 
power of his religion because of the presence of 


KEEPING THE FAITH 127 


evil still lurking in the unregenerate part of his 
nature. The vital question with us all, is not 
whether we have wholly overmastered the evil, but 
are fixed in our opposition to it. Let it be clearly 
understood by every soldier of the Cross that it is 
not the completeness of our conquest over evil, but 
the completeness of our antagonism to it that is the 
test of our fidelity in our militant and moral state, 
and this will be the test of our fitness at the last 
to receive the conqueror’s reward. When the 
earthly strife is over, and we go to meet the right- 
eous Judge, the question will not be, did he 
wholly overcome every form of evil, was the last 
drop of it purged out of him before he left earth’s 
battle-field, but did he keep up the struggle till 
the bugle sounded for the nightfall, and called 
the warrior to his rest? Did his will consent not 
to the evil which he did, and did he ever look in 
faith and trustful confidence to Him in whose 
might alone can mortal man ever hope to over- 
come? If his will did not surrender to the evil, 
then its motions in him were not sinful. They be- 
long to the old man which has satisfied the penalty 
of sin in death, and there is no condemnation to 
the new man which is in Christ Jesus, the seat and 
home of the spirit of life. And so, my weary and 
discouraged brother, take heart again and _ per- 


128 KEEPING THE FAITH 


severe. Let it be a cordial to thy drooping ener- 
gies to know that not the entire overthrow of evil 
but the unending opposition to it, is the present 
measure of human duty and divine demand. To 
look for more than this is apt to lead on to dis- 
appointment, perhaps to unbelief; to look for less 
than this, is sure to. beget indifference and sloth. 
To look only for this, to work and wait, and keep 
up the warfare till God shall bid it end—this is 
‘the faith and patience of the saints.” (38) But 
we ought not, of course, to draw the inference 
from all this, that we are to look for no present 
successes 1n our conflict; we may and ought to be 
winning them continually, and getting evil more 
and more completely under our control. The law 
of the spirit of life may become so dominant in 
us, that it shall virtually overmaster the law of 
the lower being, and bring all its insurgent ap- 
petites and feelings under its peaceful sway. The 
old nature may be so subdued that it shall not 
often rise in rebellion against the new, but shall 
habitually relapse into silence and quiescence be- 
fore the superior domination of the spirit. Stead- 
ily and surely the spirit of life may be gaining in 
strength and power of control, and proceeding to- 
ward our perfect deliverance and sanctification. 
And we cannot fail to ask the question whether we 


KEEPING THE FAITH 129 


are giving it its proper chance; whether we are 
taking pains to see that the spirit of life within 
us is properly strengthened and developed and al- 
lowed to work without obstruction in its mission 
of deliverance. We all know how the develop- 
ment of the life may be furthered, how we may 
all aid in promoting its growth and vigor by self- 
denial, self-discipline, confession, by fidelity in 
prayer, by meditation on God’s Word, by devout 
reception of the Sacrament, by continual acts of 
faith in Jesus Christ, and by deeds of loving sac- 
rifice for our fellow men. We would not often 
experience disappointment in the Christian life, if 
we used these means as faithfully as we ought to 
do. They are the laws of that life, and compli- 
ance with them is as essential to its well-being as 
obedience to physical or mental law is to the wel- 
fare of the body or the mind. We ought not to 
neglect or violate the laws of the spirit of life 
and then charge to the life itself what is due to 
the treatment of the laws. Only be true to the 
laws, only let us take heed that we abide in Christ, 
and that He abide in us, and then He will be the 
principle of life and the power of deliverance 
within us, and life’s battle will become easier 
every day and will be full of prophecies and re- 
hearsal of its final triumph. Every victory we 


130 KEEPING THE FAITH 


gain will mean an accession to our strength, and 
will store up more vigor for the future conflicts, 
even as the triumphs of the tree over the storms 
with which it struggles but serve to give it a greater 
power of resistance for the struggles yet to come. 
But let us remind ourselves again that all victories 
are to be won through the law, or orderly methods, 
of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which is but 
another expression for the living Christ, indwell- 
ing in us, and operating upon us continuously by 
His Holy Spirit. It is of the greatest importance, 
my dear friends, that we have a right understand- 
ing of this matter, and realize that our progress in 
the Christian life is carried on not so much 
through sanctification of the old nature, which is 
crucified with Christ, and dying the lingering 
death of crucifixion, as by the nurture and develop- 
ment of the new nature which we have in Christ 
our Lord. It is through the positive working of 
the spirit of life that our deliverance and salva- 
tion must be gained, and so our great paramount 
aim should be to guard, train, strengthen the Christ 
life implanted in us, and see that it is unhindered 
in its operation by ignorance and unbelief, Only 
let us secure the free, joyous, positive working of 
the spirit of life within us, and then we shall have 
little trouble with the old nature—it will, with 


KEEPING THE FAITH 131 


little repressive effort, keep its proper place. It 
will not only be sufficiently subdued, it may also 
be turned into a useful servant of the higher life. 
Its inferior impulses may be placed at the dis- 
posal of higher sentiments, and submitted to the 
transforming power of generous aspirations and 
great ideas. This will secure the just action of 
the lower appetites, and harness them for the 
higher service, even as the kine in the olden time 
were pressed into sacred tasks, and forced to draw 
the ark of the Lord. To the work of developing 
the spirit of life, let us then give ourselves with 
fresh hopefulness and courage, giving way to no 
disappointment, yielding to no temptation to slug- 
gishness or fear. Discouragement is unfavorable 
to the action of the Divine Spirit, and embarasses 
Him in His work, for this always proceeds with 
difficulty when it encounters anything like distrust 
or despondency in the heart, and only has free play 
when it meets with a bright and expectant faith. 
And go, let us see that it finds in us the congenial 
conditions which it seeks; let us commit ourselves 
once more by an act of trustful surrender into the 
hands of Jesus Christ and open our nature more 
fully to the inflow of His life and grace, believing 
that if He be in us the work of sanctification, in 
spite of all our failures, will go on to its perfec- 


132 KEEPING THE FAITH 


tion, that He Who has begun a good work in us 
will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ, and 
present us faultless in spirit, soul, and body be- 
fore His Presence, with exceeding joy. That day 
of full and final deliverance, let heart and mind 
leap forward ever to embrace; and deep in the 
secret soul let the strains of the song of triumph 
be rehearsed: ‘Thanks be to God, Who giveth us 
the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord.” 


SERMON XII 
THE UNTROUBLED HEART 


Let not your heart be troubled, ye beheve m 
God, believe also in Me.—St. John 14:1. 


ANG UR Lord’s method of dealing with trouble 
@ Dy: is quite different from the one which 

worldly wisdom usually employs. When 
trouble comes we quite naturally look about for 
some way of relieving the mind of the load which 
weighs it down; and unless we are guided by 
heavenly wisdom, we may turn to means and 
methods which have no moral value, and which 
deprive the trouble of the blessing which it was 
meant to bring. Our Lord’s cure for trouble is 
faith in God. 

I. Before dwelling on this, briefly let me men- 
tion two or three other methods of relief which we 
often adopt. (1) One is the way of forgetful- 
ness, the effort to turn the mind to other things 
which shall absorb it wholly and allow the thought 


of trouble to sink into oblivion. The wise Seneca 
133 


134 KEEPING THE FAITH 


favors such a course. When he was trying to con- 
sole a matron, who was in great bereavement, he 
had nothing better to suggest than that she should 
imitate the example of the birds and beasts around 
her, who also love their relations, but when they 
lose them, after a momentary spasm forget them 
and take life easily again. But such trouble 
means infinitely more to man than to beast, and 
just because he is man, and not beast, he cannot 
easily forget it. Furthermore, when he is him- 
self, he does not want to forget. He wishes to be 
true to his affections, and to preserve the images of 
the loved and lost undimmed in the sanctuary of 
the heart. To obliterate those images would be 
treachery to them, and an indignity to our own 
nature; and so we want to cherish the dear memo- 
ries and hallowed affections associated with them, 
even though the memory give us pain. The same 
may be said of the trouble which has its seat in 
the conscience. We cannot sink the memory of 
past sin and failure altogether in the stream of 
oblivion. If we could, what true man would want 
to do it? Who would wish the recollection of 
past wrong-doing to fade entirely from his mind, 
especially if he had never repented of it, and tried 
to make reparation for it to his own wounded 
honor, and to the eternal law of righteousness be- 


KEEPING THE FAITH LoD 


fore which he bends? Rather with the Psalmist 
would the lapsed one prefer to say, “My sin is 
ever before me,” and find in the undying recollec- 
tion an incentive to humility and a closer walk- 
ing with his God; and when coupled with the 
memory of a past forgiveness, an unceasing stimu- 
lus to thankfulness and praise. (2) Another way 
of treating trouble is the way of indifference; the 
endeavor to crush the sensitive emotions and affec- 
tions, and to cultivate an apathetic heart. There 
have been some in every age who have tried this 
stoical method: who have endeavored to steel them- 
selves against trouble by hardening the sensi- 
bilities and repressing the sympathies which ener- 
vate the powers of action. Perhaps they have suc- 
ceeded in diminishing the effect of trouble on them, 
but in gaining the callous heart, have they not be- 
come partly dehumanized? Have they not lost the 
distinctive glory of our human nature? Better 
far, the profoundly sensitive heart that has in- 
finite capacity for suffering as well as for joy, 
than one which has been turned to stone, and is 
as passionless as the marble statue. The same 
treatment applied to conscience ossifies it, and 
the one who tries it, escapes the trouble for his 
sin at the cost of the ruin of the divinest part of 
our being, the destruction of the faculty through 


136 KEEPING THE FAITH 


which God chiefly speaks to the human soul. (3) 
Still one more way of treating trouble is that of 
counteraction; indulgence in things that tend to 
neutralize its effect and produce its opposite. One 
of the most common forms of this is the attempt 
to oppose the trouble by the countervailing ef- 
fect of pleasure; to still the heart’s pains by the 
thrills of nerve or sense, caused by exciting amuse- 
ment and diversion, and sometimes also by in- 
dulgence in immoral excess. Poor heart! To 
treat it thus is but a small tribute to its nobility 
and vastness, and it is to make sure that the pain 
momentarily Iulled shall return again with a 
greater intensity than it had before. How much 
wiser to forsake earth’s troubled waters for a 
purer spring, and to drink at a fount which can 
satisfy the heart’s thirst as well as cleanse it from 
its stains! 

II. And so we come to the method recommended 
by our Lord in the text. “Let not your heart 
be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in 
Me.” The way to gain and keep an untroubled 
heart is to have confidence in God, Who is behind 
all the issues of our lives, the Supreme Disposer 
of all the events occurring in them, and without 
Whose knowledge (and permission) no trouble ean 
befall us. When troubles are apprehended or 


KEEPING THE FAITH 187 


have actually come to pass, our Lord would have 
us fall back on the belief that they are not hid- 
den from the infinite and all-knowing mind of 
Him Who holds all things in the grasp of His 
Omniscience, and without Whom no trivial event 
can happen, not even a sparrow can fall to the 
ground. But the Lord’s words reach much 
further than this. It is not the faith of the 
mere theist that He recommends, but the faith of 
the Christian, of one who believes that the in- 
finite and invisible God has been manifested to 
us in the Incarnation; that He is shown to us in 
Christ as a universal Father, Who knows and 
loves each one of His children and is ceaselessly 
employed in the attempt to do them good. “Ye 
believe in God, believe also in Me.” In the In- 
carnation God has put Himself in a new relation 
to our human troubles, and given us a new basis 
of trust and confidence in Him. He has acquired 
a new knowledge of trouble, a knowledge which 
He could not possibly have had before He en- 
tered, as He did, into our human life, viz., an 
experimental knowledge, that which comes from 
personal test and trial of what it means. We 
think of the life of the Eternal God as one great 
flow of Joy and Blessedness and Peace, and we 
cannot rid ourselves of the feeling that our trials 


188 KEEPING THE FAITH 


and troubles cannot be quite understood by a Be- 
ing Who has no experience of them; but what if 
even the impassible God has become a man of sor- 
rows and acquainted with grief? What if He 
looks upon the ‘sufferings and trials of a weeping 
world, not from the heights of His Divine Om- 
niscience, but from our human viewpoint, and 
from the basis of an actual endurance of them 
all? What if he learned all about the grief and 
pains of human life in order that He might more 
fully sympathize with human sufferers, and be 
better able to turn their troubles into blessing, 
their sufferings into the glory to be revealed by 
and by? Then surely we shall have a firmer 
ground of trust and confidence in God, and be en- 
couraged to draw near to Him to obtain what- 
ever help we may need. Then the prayer of 
faith will unburden the soul of whatever load it 
has been forced to bear, and make it strong and 
brave and patient to endure. It was such a faith 
that our Lord asked of the disciples when He said, 
“Ye believe in God, believe also in Me.” It was 
against a special form of trouble that He wished 
particularly to forefend them; a trouble appre- 
hended rather than quite yet encountered that was 
weighing them down. Their Lord was about to 
go to the Cross and then depart into heaven, and 


KEEPING THE FAITH 139 


leave them to carry on alone the work He had 
given them to do. The prospect of His departure 
had filled their minds with gloomy forebodings 
and depressing fears. What shall happen to them 
and His cause in the future? He had given them 
the mighty task of spreading His Church in a 
hostile world. What can they, a few weak un- 
lettered men, accomplish without His Presence 
and Help? Our Lord bids them have faith in 
God, and go forward to their tasks. Have con- 
fidence in the God Whose the Kingdom is, Who 
has a human as well as a divine interest in it, and 
Who is pledged by the Incarnation and the Cross 
to prosper it. Remember that He has made the 
cause of humanity His own, and that He cannot 
suffer that cause to fail. Believe that the wel- 
fare, the happiness, the salvation of the race to 
which He is joined, whose fortunes He has made 
His own, are bound up with the progress of the 
Church and doubt not that He Who has helped 
you hitherto, shall be with you alway even to the 
end. And so go forth, strong in faith, and the 
Kingdom shall at last prevail. The disciples did 
as their Lord bade them and we know the result. 
IIJ. There are critical times in the world’s 
history when these words of Christ come home to 
us with a special pertinence and power. Such 


140. KEEPING THE FAITH 


a time is here. It is a time of great storm and 
stress on life’s troubled sea, when the waves run 
high and when both Church and State seem to be 
in danger of shipwreck. It is a time of present 
distress and of grave apprehension for the future. 
Some are asking what shall be the fate of the 
Church, the heavenly sailing ship, as it rides upon 
an element greatly disturbed by the mighty move- 
ments of our modern social life, the unsettling 
and upsetting influences at work in science and 
religion, and which seem to have left it no stable 
basis for its faith, its order, or its authority. 
Must not the old barque succumb to the violence 
of the adverse winds and buffeting waves as it 
sails on the untried waters and uncharted courses 
of the new age in which it lives? Surely they 
who ask this question may well remind them- 
selves that our Lord Himself was once on the 
ship when it was exposed to the peril of stormy 
skies and threatening waves, and that He saved 
it from all harm and rebuked His disciples in the 
words, “Why are ye so fearful, O ye of little 
faith?’ The incident certainly suggests the 
thought that the greatest danger of the Church 
comes not from agitation but from stagnation, 
that not the tossing ship but the becalmed ship is 
what the disciple most should dread. But the 


KEEPING THE FAITH 141 


fear of others is for the future of our modern 
civilization, and the organized forms of society 
with which it is allied. They are asking what 
shall be the issue of the awful conflict in which 
the warring nations overseas are engaged, and 
which is continually spreading its work of wreck 
and ruin on home and shrine and most cherished 
institutions of the suffering world? Is not our 
confidence in our civilization, forms of govern- 
ment, and the religion in which we thought them 
to be rooted strained almost to the breaking point 
by the ferocity and inhumanity of the conflict, 
and can we hope that the Christianity that was 
unable to prevent it can survive the shock, and 
be sufficient for our future needs? Above the 
confusion, the tumult, the bewilderment of the 
hour; above the battle shout, the cannon roar, 
the thunder roll of the war clouds that are curl- 
ing toward our shores, we hear the voice of Christ 
coming down through the ages, “Ye believe in 
God, believe also in Me.” We will fall back on 
our faith in Him. Nothing shall shake our trust 
in Him Who has been our strength and stay, in 
many a dark and dreary day of sorrows and re- 
verses, and Who will never leave us nor forsake 
us, but will be our Guide and Helper through all 
the perils of the future. As representative man, 


142 KEEPING THE FAITH 


He feels the same yearnings for peace, brother- 
hood, international unity that are in our hearts, 
and as divine He has grace and power to bring 
them to effect. But His Kingdom is not of this 
world. If men say that civilization has failed 
and will be swept away, we will remember that the 
supreme object of Christianity is not civilization 
but salvation. If they tell us that Christianity 
itself has failed and is no more worthy of our 
trust, we will ask them to wait and see what its ul- 
timate results will be in a future world. It was 
meant indeed to improve the conditions of our life 
on earth, but its chief interest is in the life itself, 
not its fleeting conditions, and its supreme effort 
is to prepare men for the life immortal in the 
better world. Civilizations may change their 
form, kingdoms may rise and fall, but we have 
received a Kingdom which cannot be moved, and 
we may work for that with hope and courage and 
calm trust in God. We may be so absorbed in the 
work which the King has left for us to do as to 
be almost unmindful of the commotiong in the 
world around us, even as the Roman army when 
engaged in battle was unconscious of the earth- 
quake which made the ground to tremble beneath 
their feet. Our supreme thought may be of the 
God Who is underneath the shaking earth, Who is 


KEEPING THE FAITH 143 


working to make all the commotions and distresses 
of the nations subserve His righteous purposes, 
and Whose Kingdom of love and peace shall at 
last prevail. And so let us keep up our work 
with minds stayed upon God. “O put your trust 
in Him always, ye people, pour out your hearts 
before Him, for God is our Hope.” 


SERMON XIII 
JOY A SOURCE OF STRENGTH 


For the joy of the Lord is your strength.— 
Nehemiah 8: 10. 


ZH occasion of the prophet’s words was 
GS briefly this. When the Jews had re- 

turned from captivity and had begun the 
restoration of Jerusalem, Ezra read and ex- 
pounded the law which during the sad years of 
exile had been to them a sealed book. Listening 
with attentive mind they began to realize how 
great had been the losses and lapses of the gloomy 
period through which they had passed, how for- 
getful they had been of their splendid privileges 
and exalted duties, and in a rush of contrite feel- 
ing, they lifted up their voices and wept. But 
the Scribe, with a true insight into the springs of 
human action, endeavored to make despondency 
give place to cheerfulness. He saw at once that 
if there was to be any change for the better, it 


could not be brought about by hopeless mourning 
144 


KEEPING THE FAITH 145 


over past delinquency, or gloomy anticipation of 
future failure; that the spirit in which God’s 
laws are to be attempted is a bright and hopeful 
courage, and dependence on a strength greater than 
one’s own. Accordingly he bids them to dry their 
tears, to turn their transient emotion into fixed 
resolution, and begin at once to serve the God of 
their fathers with a cheerful mind; for “the joy 
of the Lord is your strength.” The lesson divested 
of its Jewish dress is one of universal applica- 
tion. It is carried over with great distinctness 
and added emphasis into Christianity, for joy is 
more conspicuous in Christianity than in any 
other religion and in the Bible than in any other 
sacred book. We know how manifest it was in the 
life of its Founder, our Holy Lord, for He was not 
in His ordinary life the Man of Sorrows but His 
heart was ever full of a deep and tranquil joy and 
the glow of happiness felt in His company formed 
an element in His charm. He could wish nothing 
better for His disciples than that His joy might 
be in them, and that their joy might be full; and 
you remember how this His prayer is turned into 
precept by the apostles, as, for instance, by St. 
Paul who bids us “Rejoice in the Lord always, 
and again I say rejoice.” If joy be thus attain- 
able it would seem to need no great persuasion to 


146 KEEPING THE FAITH 


induce us to embrace it, but as a matter of fact we 
often fail greatly here. Cheerful, happy Chris- 
tians are much less common than gloomy ones. 
We sometimes make the religion which should be 
like sunshine and music, like the blooming of 
spring flowers and the outburst of woodland mel- 
ody upon the paths of men, seem to them more 
like a mournful passage through a vale of misery 
over which the clouds hang low and in which the 
trill of birds is never heard. This is unfair to 
Christ and dishonoring to the Father, the God of 
all joy. Christians owe it to God as well as to 
themselves to be habitually cheerful. We our- 
selves are infinite losers when we fail to possess 
such a spirit; and of the many advantages which 
are wrapped within it we think a little while this 
morning only of the one the text suggests, that 
cheerfulness is a source of strength. 

This, we do not always readily admit. We 
are apt to consider strength of character, moral 
force, and effectiveness as born rather of the trial, 
the struggle, the suffering, which discipline the 
will, but banish brightness of spirit, and put at 
best a sober and chastened state of feeling in its 
place. Just as it takes the wild storm to root the 
forest tree firmly into its native earth, so we think 
it takes the conflict with adversity to fix a human 


KEEPING THE FAITH 147 


character in the soil of goodness, and give it power 
of resistance against evil. There is a certain 
amount of truth in all this, and it is to be expected 
that in the hard discipline of life the spirit should 
lose something of a natural and temperamental 
brightness, a susceptibility to surface, emotional 
enjoyment, but this is not what we should be care- 
ful to retain. It is a joy of or in the Lord, not in 
ourselves or the things about us, that the text 
recommends; a high moral joy coming from fel- 
lowship with God and contact with His Spirit, that 
we should never lose; and if life’s sorrows or con- 
flicts have deprived us of that, and made us habit- 
ually melancholy and depressed, if they have ban- 
ished the smile and the sunshine from a world 
across whose very storms a good God has flung the 
brilliant rainbow, and whose very thunder clouds 
He has rimmed with golden light, then they have 
failed of their purpose. Indeed it is only as they 
are transmuted by the alchemy of faith into oc- 
casions of rejoicing, according to the Lord’s prom- 
ise, ‘your sorrows shall be turned into joy,” do 
they accomplish anything for a human character. 
For sorrow, simply by itself, enervates and ren- 
ders us unfit for vigorous action. Cheerfulness, 
on the other hand, invigorates and gives inspira- 
tion to energy. We all know how true this is in 


148 KEEPING THE FAITH 


the ordinary week-day work of life; and there is 
no department of this in which the man of bright 
and hopeful spirit will not work better and work 
longer than the one who is habitually dejected and 
discontented. The cheerful student is better than 
one of melancholy habit, and the mechanic who 
takes pleasure in his art will produce more excel- 
lent results than the one who esteems it mere 
drudgery. The happy maid or housewife will go 
through the daily round of domestic toil with 
greater ease and success than the sad-hearted one 
who finds no pleasure in her dreary tasks. Not 
long ago I was visiting in a home which was so 
circumstanced that it could procure no outside help 
for the daily routine, but all the duties pertaining 
to its domestic economy had to be performed by 
its own inmates. They were refined, cultivated 
people unused to toil, and I would not have won- 
dered had I found them in a depressed or com- 
plaining mood, but instead of this they were bright 
and cheerful. They addressed themselves to their 
tasks with alacrity and enthusiasm. They seemed 
to set them to music. One could catch snatches 
of a song coming through kitchen door, or the ease- 
ment of an upper chamber, and the cheery spirit 
made the work fly, and spread an atmosphere of 
happiness throughout the dwelling. As I was lis- 


KEEPING THE FAITH 149 


tening the thought came to me that we should set 
about our more distinctly religious work in the 
same spirit, doing it with what Wordsworth calls 
“inward glee,’ and the prophet, the joy of the 
Lord. We may work indeed from a sense of duty, 
but if we take no enjoyment in the work there will 
be little zeal or enthusiasm in it and more than 
likely there will be a lack of perseverance in our 
well-doing. Vain often is the endeavor to hold 
the powers to the unremitting discharge of that 
which is undertaken only under the compulsion of 
conscience. The Christian can find better energy 
for service, as well as more persistent strength of 
patience, in the divine joy which may be poured 
into the heart by the grace of Christ. You know 
how often we are bidden in the Bible to serve “the 
Lord with gladness,” and this is not only for our 
own enjoyment but for the strength, stability, and 
beauty of the service. Let us remark a little 
further that the deep strong joy of the Lord is es- 
sential to suecess in our battles as well as in our 
work. Experience has taught us, I am sure, that 
in our battling with temptation, our endeavors to 
overcome our besetting faults, we are often liable 
to defeat, and defeat is discouraging to the mind 
and depressing to the energies, and exposes us to 
the danger of giving up the conflict in despair. 


150 KEEPING THE FAITH 


We need something to counteract the depressing 
influence, and give us strength to persevere, to 
press on in the battle with high courage and the 
inflexible determination never to give up the day, 
and this is found in the joy of the Lord, the joy of 
a heart that thoroughly believes in the reality of 
His forgiveness, and the power of His grace to 
give us victory at last. Therefore after every 
failure seek His forgiveness, and in humble con- 
fidence “renew the conflict day by day and help 
divine implore.” I have left little time to speak 
of the ways in which the joy of the Lord may be 
maintained and increased within us, but if its 
ground and source be in Him and not in ourselves, 
then the great secret of it is in living near to Him 
and in fellowship with Him. The joy is often as- 
sociated in the Scripture with faith, as, for in- 
stance, when the apostle prays that the God of 
hope may fill us with all joy and peace—in beliey- 
ing, and so faith in God is viewed as a necessary 
condition, of joy in Him, and the measure of the 
joy as proportioned to the strength and stability 
of the faith. Faith and fellowship, let us carry 
this simple formula away with us, and store it in 
the heart, as the unfailing secret of life’s joy. O 
my friends, can we really believe that God is such 
a Being as has been revealed to us in His Word 


KEEPING THE FAITH 151 


and the Incarnation of His Son? Can we believe 
that He is an all-loving Father Who yearns over 
His children and desires to promote their welfare 
and happiness; Who has been at such infinite cost 
to deliver them from their sins, and make them 
partakers of His divine nature; can we believe 
that our souls were made for Him and can find 
alone in Him the rest, the peace, the perfection, 
for which we sigh, that He has prepared for our 
satisfaction all the good things referred to in to- 
day’s Collect, things which pass our understand- 
ing and exceed all that we can desire; can we be- 
lieve all this without entering somewhat into the 
spirit of the apostle’s words, “In whom though 
now we see Him not, yet believing we rejoice with 
joy unspeakable and full of glory’? Verily in 
the faith of these blessed truths, our souls should 
be lifted above the trials and anxieties of our 
life in the world and made possessors of a joy 
the world can neither give nor take away. Sor- 
rows will indeed come to us, but they need not 
destroy the inward joy. They need not silence 
the music of the heart, but should only set it 
to a minor key. They need not shut out the 
light by which we walk but the shadow on the 
pathway may become as the covering of God’s 
Pavilion. All our sorrows may be turned into joy 


152 KEEPING THE FAITH 


and become the occasions of a fuller and more 
blessed gladness. May we not hope that this will 
prove true at last of the awful anguish through 
which the warring nations of the world are pass- 
ing, and that out of it may come a purification, a 
strength, a righteousness and peace unknown be- 
fore? It ought to be true of our personal sorrows, 
and there are none of these which may not be the 
means of blessing and issue at last in deep and sol- 
emn joy. In the light of such a hope the speaker 
has tried to meet the sorrow through which he re- 
cently has been called to pass, and in which you, 
my dear friends, by your sympathy and prayers 
have so greatly helped him. When a young life 
with prospect of useful service to the world is cut 
off, when there is no more earthly future for it, 
and all the plans and expectations formed for it 
have come to nought, when the tender ties by 
which it was bound to parent and kindred are 
snapped asunder, we say how great the disappoint- 
ment! What hopes and joys are now ended! 
But does not our faith teach us, my dear friends, 
that the hopes and joys are not ended but may be 
transmuted? The untasted joy, the unfulfilled 
promise, may have a fuller, finer, sweeter, more 
spiritual fulfilling by and by, and the earthly 
loss may be converted into eternal gain. May God 


KEEPING THE FAITH Io 


thus deal with all our sorrows, and fill our hearts 
with His own deep and abiding joy; and may that 
joy be our strength in all the hard passages of the 
future way, and fit each of us to be a helper of 
another’s joy. 


SERMON XIV 
THE JOY OF SACRIFICIAL WORSHIP 


And when the burnt offering began, the song 
of the Lord also began with the trumpets, and the 
instruments ordained by David, king of Israel. 
II Chronicles 29: 27. 


SIE occasion of this outburst of music was 
the restoration of the worship of Jehovah 

by the pious Hezekiah, after a period of 
neglect on the part of forgetful Israel. We might 
have expected that the first offering after the 
apostasy, would have been made in gloomy silence 
or with vocal expressions which more naturally 
befit a state of penitential feeling. But not with 
mute sorrow or mournful wail did the smoke of 
the offering ascend but with a burst of jubilation 
from trumpeters and singers and the vast host 
which had been summoned by the king. The oc- 
casion was an unusual one, but the demonstration 
of exhilarated feeling was not an unusual accom- 


paniment of the offering of sacrifice. The burnt 
154 


KEEPING THE FAITH 155 


offering commonly went up with the strain of 
jubilant music and the song of triumphant joy. 
David, a musical enthusiast and an inventor of mu- 
sical instruments, had developed the choral serv- 
ice of the tabernacle to an extent before unknown, 
and could you have been present at one of these 
services, you would have heard, when the burnt 
offering began, the sound of wind instruments, 
mingled with the clash of cymbals, and the mur- 
mur of harps, while high over all, rose the voices 
of the vast Levite choir, as the people bowed their 
heads and worshiped. The ancient worshiper 
was thus trained to believe that a festal spirit was 
best suited to divine worship, and especially 
to the offering of sacrifice; and the reason for it 
all lay in this. The sacrifice which he made 
was a type of the one great offering which here- 
after should be made for the redemption of the 
world and its deliverance from sin and death. 
They spoke to him of propitiation, restoration to 
communion with God, and a sharing in all the 
benefits of the divine covenant with man. 
Therefore the services in which they were offered 
should be joyous in their character, and in them 
the worshiper should put off the spirit of heavi- 
ness and put on the garment of praise. The of- 
fering should always be associated with the song 


156 KEEPING THE FAITH 


and the trumpet and the signs of festal gladness. 
Now we are here to-day to show forth the one 
perfect offering which the old sacrifices fore- 
showed ; and surely in the service which commemo- 
rates the completed offering there should be some- 
thing of the same spirit that pervaded the type 
and shadow of good things to come. 

For the brief space allowed for instruction this 
morning, let us dwell a little on the festal spirit 
which properly belongs to the Eucharistic Feast. 

I. And we begin with the confession, from 
which few of us will dissent, that our Eucharists 
are generally deficient in the temper and tone 
which befits the festival solemnity. I do not refer 
to any lack in the choral element or any of the 
outward insignia of festal gladness; but one which 
may exist whether the celebration be choral or 
oral, plain or elaborate, bereft of ornament or 
ritually adorned. It is the spirit for which the 
song and trumpet stand which is the all-important 
thing, the spirit of thankfulness, praise, exultation, 
high and reverent cheer, of which the music is 
the natural expression. In this there is the felt 
deficiency. Although we now have the great 
reality which the ancient offerings dimly shadowed 
forth, although we come together to commemo- 
rate the one perfect and complete offering which 


KEEPING TILE FAITH 157 
has been made for the sins of all the world, al- 
though we re-present it to the Father, and claim 
for ourselves all the benefits it procures, yet we 
often bring to our services a spirit which is 
strangely destitute of glad and grateful feeling, 
and which very feebly responds to the sound of the 
trumpet and the song. If we enquire into the 
reason for this deficiency, it is not to be found in 
any defect in the Eucharistic office of the Prayer 
Book which we continually employ. That is full 
of expression of reverent and exultant feeling, 
penetrated throughout with a spirit of thankful- 
ness, adoration, and high praise. From the Sur- 
sum Corda to the Gloria in Excelsis; from the mo- 
ment when we are bidden to lift up our hearts to 
God on high to the time when we use the sublime 
words which the angels taught us on the morning 
of the nativity, the Eucharistic office is one con- 
tinuous outpouring of exalted devotion, one sus- 
tained rendering of laud and glory to God for 
the blessings of redemption. It is like a great 
symphony in which all the parts are blended and 
fused together in subordination to a central theme 
which they conspire to celebrate, the theme being 
the offering of the Lamb slain from the founda- 
tion of the world. If our Eucharists are with- 
out this element of laudation, the fault is not in 


158 KEEPING THE FAITH 


the office, but in ourselves. Our spirits are not 
modulated to the high key in which the service 
has been pitched; we bring to it a frame of mind 
and feeling which is lower than the memorial de 
mands; and let me go on to make a few practical 
suggestions about the cultivation of a worthier 
devotional frame. (1) And first, I need hardly 
remind you that very much depends on the char- 
acter of our preparation for the heavenly Feast. 
Sometimes little or no preparation is made, and 
then we cannot wonder that there is a want of 
harmony between the mind and the temper of the 
service. There is so much in every life which 
tends to depress the spirits and rob the mind of 
its buoyancy and nobler aspiration, that unless 
we deal in advance with the causes of dejection, 
it is quite certain, that when the offering begins 
we shall hear no echoes of the trumpet and the 
song. ‘There are the cares, anxieties, and troubles 
from which no life is altogether exempt, and 
with which many lives are crowded very full. 
There are great troubles which occasionally come, 
and put a crushing weight upon the heart, and 
there are little insect cares which are daily on 
the wing, and come in larger swarms in the noon- 
day heat, with power to irritate even the noblest 
minds around which they sport. Unless before 


KEEPING THE FAITH 159 


coming to church an effort is made to eject these 
fretting and depressing things from the mind, it 
is quite unlikely that we shall be able to do this 
after the service begins, and it is most probable 
that we shall only breathe throughout it the an- 
cient sigh of the Psalmist, “Why art thou so 
heavy, O my soul, and why art thou so disquieted 
within me?’ There should always be an attempt 
beforehand to throw off the load of our cares and 
troubles, to cast the burden on the Lord; and hav- 
ing done this, by an act. of trustful faith, to leave 
the burden in His hand and not pick it up again 
and try to carry it with our own unaided strength. 
Such a course will go far to attune our spirits to 
the cheer of the sacred feast and make us able to 
use the other part of the Psalmist’s words, “I 
will go unto the altar of God, even the God of 
my joy and gladness, and upon the harp will I 
sing praise unto God.” (2) But a still greater 
cause of want of congruity with the feast is the 
sense of sin which we all feel and which we often 
bring with us to our celebrations. It is this that 
more than anything else produces lowness of 
spirits, throws the heart out of rest, and robs it 
of its peace; and this also should be dealt with be- 
fore we make approach to the altar. Time should 
always be found for an honest self-examination, 


160. KEEPING THE FAITH 


that we may know what our faults and im- 
perfections are, and this should always be followed 
by a contrite confession of them to the God who 
bids us weep our sins as well as sorrows on His 
loving Breast. ‘Fhe confession should always be 
accompanied by an act of faith in the blood and 
righteousness of Christ, such an act as shall shed 
abroad in the heart a sense of God’s pardoning 
love, and restore to it, its last peace; and when this 
effect is not realized there still remains to us the 
privilege of telling our trouble to some trusted 
priest, making our confession in his presence, get- 
ting his advice, and a personal absolution, coming 
through him from the Divine Absolver to our in- 
dividual soul. Many a penitent soul finds this of 
great help in tranquillizing the conscience and 
heart and properly preparing them for the song 
and trumpet of the Feast. (3) Another point of 
wisdom is that we meditate beforehand on the Pas- 
sion of the Lord, on the innumerable benefits it 
procures, and the infinite love which it evinces. 
We are often too self-seeking and self-centred in 
our preparations. We think a great deal about 
our wants and weaknesses, our failures and ghort- 
comings, and with minds filled with the thought 
of these, come to our services and find it in vain 
that we try to rise above the depressing self- 


KEEPING THE FAITH 161 


consciousness which has taken possession of our 
breasts. We should correct this selfish tendency 
by thinking much of the Cross and Passion of the 
Lord, asking the Divine Spirit at the same time 
to show us something of the sweetness and power 
of the truths on which we meditate. We may 
spend too much time in introspection. We may 
learn too much of what goes on within us. Our 
spiritual analysis may be too fine; and a morbid 
self-consciousness may easily take the place of the 
Christ consciousness which ought to waken in the 
regenerate soul. And so, in coming to the Feast 
forget self, and think only of Christ. ‘Do this in 
remembrance of Me,” is His command, and it is a 
strange perversion of His meaning when we keep 
the feast in remembrance of self. Fix mind and 
heart on Him as He offers Himself for our salva- 
tion on the Cross and continually presents His 
offering in our behalf, in the Holy of Holies, above 
the blue starry veil of the sanctuary on High, and 
the more the consciousness is filled with the 
thought of Him the more likely will we be to break 
forth into song and make our Eucharist a real 
offering of praise and thanksgiving to His Holy 
Name. 

IT. But leaving the thought of preparation, and 
coming for a moment to that of the actual celebra- 


162 KEEPING THE FAITH 


tion of the Eucharist, I fear that our joy in the 
service is often hindered by the thought that we 
have no offering to bring to God which is worthy 
of ourselves or worthy of acceptance in His sight. 
We think we can only offer our souls and bodies, 
as the office bids us do, as a living sacrifice to 
God, and how poor and mean that offering seems 
to be! How we often shrink from making it! 
We can only bring, we say, a body which has been 
stained by many a sin, a weak and wandering mind 
which we cannot hold steadily to any high, re- 
ligious theme, a frail and feeble will which has so 
often broken down under the strain of temptation, 
a cold, divided heart which has wasted its affec- 
tions on worldly and unholy things—and what 
satisfaction can we have in making an offering like 
that? But, my dear friends, is that all you have 
to offer? If so, then it is quite natural that all 
joy should be wiped out of our Eucharists, as when 
a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it 
upside down. But this is not all. Is it not a 
chief part of our belief that in our Eucharists we 
memorialize, hold up before God the one perfect 
and complete sacrifice and oblation which has been 
made by Jesus Christ our Lord, that we plead it 
before God, as the only ground of our acceptance ? 
And that in virtue of our union with our Lord, 


KEEPING THE FAITH 163 
that offering becomes indeed our own and covers 
all the imperfections and defects of our self- 
oblation? Do we not believe if we are in Christ, 
that when we make the offering of our sinful 
selves, behind it is the offering of the stainless 
body, the pure white soul, the indefectible will, the 
undivided heart of Jesus Christ our Lord, all sac- 
rificed to the Father, throughout His life, and 
made a burnt offering on the Cross; and all ac 
cepted as our own offering, when made our own by 
a self-appropriating faith? Surely the thought 
should give us joy when we offer and present our- 
selves in sacrifice to God. Make the sacrifice to- 
day with solemn gladness, and the confidence that 
is born of a trustful faith. Before God’s altar re- 
new your consecration. Use the powers of your 
royal priesthood to assist in making the commem- 
orative offering of the Sacrifice of the Cross and 
the offering of yourselves in union with it. As 
you come to feed upon the sacrifice of the slain 
Lamb, let mind and heart be filled with a thankful 
remembrance of His death. Lift up the dull 
powers above the thought of self, or sin, or earthly 
care, and fix them on Him ‘Who was offered for 
greatest and for least, Himself the Victim, and 
Himself the Priest.”” Put away everything like 
anxiety, murmuring, discontent, or distrust, and 


164 KEEPING THE FAITH 


let the mind soar into the calm atmosphere of 
heavenly peace and joy. Let the evensong, and 
the daily offices, be a continuation, a filling out of 
the spirit of the Eucharist, and be sure that you 
carry its cheer into the duties of the common 
life. Thus shall the melodies of the song and 
trumpet awake indeed within the heart and abide 
with us through all our earthly days, and our 
Eucharists will be our best preparation for the 
joyous worship and unending praise of the better 
world. 


SERMON XV 


HUMAN COOPERATION NEEDED IN 
MISSIONARY WORK 


The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon.—Judges 
Marlo: 


xJOU will readily recall the occasion on which 
these words were used. In evil days a 
vast host of Midianites were gathered to- 
gether to give battle to the tribes of Israel. On 
the surrounding hills, was the smaller army which 
Gideon had been able to assemble to resist the in- 
vading foe. Out of the Jewish force a selected 
band of three hundred were detailed to conduct the 
movement which their leader had in view. They 
were armed with the strange weapons of trumpets, 
and pitchers within which were lighted lamps; and 
under cover of the night, they stealthily approached 
the foe and blew the trumpets, and broke the pitch- 
ers, and suddenly exposed the flaring lights which 
they concealed. Then the little band raised the 


battle cry of the text, on hearing which, the Mid- 
165 


po 


166 KEEPING THE FAITH 


ianites were panic struck, and fled in great confu- 
sion, setting their swords every man against his fel- 
low throughout the host. The incident is history, 
and prophecy as well. It is a prophetic picture of 
the way in which the triumphs of the Gospel and 
the Church should be won, in future ages, by the 
unarmed soldiers of the Cross. Thus the proph- 
ets themselves employ it, as, for instance, Isaiah 
who with prevision of these victories in the Mes- 
sianic times, exclaims, ‘‘Thou has broken the yoke 
of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder as in 
the day of Midian. For unto us a Child is born, 
a Son is given, and the government shall be upon 
Tis shoulder.” And so, back to this day of Mid- 
ian we must go for instruction about the way in 
which the aggressive work of the Church should be 
conducted, in the days of the Incarnate Son. It 
would be easy to dwell upon details, and point 
out, as the early fathers did, how the trumpecs 
stand for the sound of the Gospel, and the pitchers 
for the light thereof, which treasure we have, as 
the apostle says, ‘‘in earthen vessels;” or how 
both look forward to the sounding of the last 
trump and to the lightning of Christ’s Advent, in 
the darkness of the night of unbelief. But we 
confine ourselves, rather, to the more general les- 
son of the battle ery itself, “The sword of the Lord 


KEEPING THE FAITH 167 


and of Gideon.” What does this teach, but that 
there must be cooperation of the Divine Agent and 
the human instrument in the battles of the Gospel 
and the Church; a union of divine force or power, 
and human weakness in the conduct of the mis- 
sionary campaign against the spiritual Midianites 
entrenched in every valley of the land? What 
more particularly is the Sword of the Lord? It 
is explained by St. Paul to be the Word of God, 
which is the Sword of the Spirit, and has a pene- 
trative, searching, and dividing power, which sin 
and error are unable to resist. It is sometimes 
spoken of in the Holy Scripture as going out of 
the Lord’s mouth, and having two edges, the Law 
and the Gospel; and therefore expressing both the 
majesty and the mercy which the Word reveals. 
Gideon stands for any and all the human instru- 
ments which the Lord uses in the promulgation of 
His truth: the human hand that wields the sword, 
the human lip that speaks the word, and the hu- 
man helper that supports the preacher by sym- 
pathy and prayer and gifts. Speaking broadly, 
we may say that Gideon and his band represent 
the ministry, and the people of the Lord, working 
through the missionary society, the selected three 
hundred set apart to carry on the offensive opera- 
tions in behalf of the whole embattled host. The 


168 KEEPING THE FAITH 


point is that the Divine Agent wants the human 
instrument and depends on him for the achieve- 
ment of success. It is the Sword of the Lord and 
of Gideon that makes up the full battle cry, and 
without the arm of Gideon no victory ever will be 
won. 

I. That the Sword of the Lord is first and 
chief and principal in the whole matter, we hardly 
need to say. The Lord must give the word. He 
must utter the voice which is mighty in opera- 
tion, and rend open the hearts of men to receive 
it, or else there can be no progress of His King- 
dom on the earth. Our only dependence in our 
Church and missionary work must be in God; and 
the more deeply we feel this truth, the more likely 
we are to have success. If we think only of the 
men we send, the money we raise, the machinery 
we invent, and forget God, we shall surely be 
doomed to disappointing failure. He will not 
give His glory to another. He will never allow 
His human agents to vaunt themselves against 
Him, saying, ‘Mine own hand has saved me.” 
All He wants of the human instrument is to be 
the willing vehicle of His grace and power, and 
He will always win His victories in such a way as 
to show that the battle is His, and not the agent’s 
He employs. But while this is so, it is also true 


KEEPING THE FAITH 169 


that He will not do anything without the human 
instruments He raises up, and qualifies to be His 
colaborers in the work and warfare of the King- 
dom. Ever since the Word was made flesh and 
dwelt among us, He has been conditioned, as it 
were, by the terms of the Incarnation, and He has 
willed to exert no conquering force, to communi- 
cate no saving grace, except through the humanity 
which He has united to His Godhead. He has got- 
ten into humanity, inserted Himself into it, with 
all His redemptive power, and instead of operat- 
ing on it from without, doing something for or 
upon it, He works through it, making it both the 
container and dispenser of His light, and truth, 
and grace. He makes men to be receivers of His 
salvation, and ordains that it shall spread from 
man to man. He commits His Gospel to a con- 
secrated people, and wills that it shall fly as fast 
and no faster than they may choose to tell it forth. 
He builds His Church of chosen men and women, 
and decrees that it shall increase no more than 
these human hands supply the stones for its rising 
walls. Difficulties may arise, error, ignorance, in- 
fidelity, hostile criticism may abound, but He will 
overcome these, and every other Midianitish foe, 
only by the sanctified intelligence of the cham- 
pions He raises up, and illumines with the light of 


170 KEEPING THE FAITH 


truth. Of course, He might have used other agen- 
cles in the upbuilding of His Kingdom. Instead 
of operating on humanity from within, He might 
have worked upon it only from without, and en- 
deavored by the sheer force of His Omnipotence 
to constrain it to His love and service; or if He 
sent His Son, He might have charged Him to sit 
upon the circle of the heavens, and apply His 
grace and help only with an unseen hand that 
touched us from afar; or if He had a Gospel to 
proclaim He might have bidden the stars to chime 
it forth, or sent legions of angels, flying through 
the air, to make it known, even as they did, for a 
little space, in the wonderful night, long centuries 
ago; or looking on to our scientific age He might 
have instituted the radio conductor, instead of the 
human agent, as the instrument for the transmis- 
sion of His truth. But on no such means has He 
chosen to depend. He has committed His Gospel 
and Church unto men, and will use nothing but 
human instrumentality in their propagation. 
The battle cry which He Himself has given us, is 
the Sword of the Lord and of Gideon. He always 
wants the human agent. He will not save the liy- 
ing, He will not even raise the dead without man, 
“for since by man came death, by man came also 
the resurrection of the dead,” and the hope of 


KEEPING THE FAITH BOL 


eternal life for all.* I do not doubt, my Chris- 
tian friends, that we all admit the principle which 
underlies the text, and yet I fear we often prac- 
tically deny it in our dealing with the missionary 
problem. Go with me to the great missionary 
meeting and listen to the speech and prayer of 
those who are longing for a greater measure of 
success in missionary work! How often does it 
appear, both from their prophecy and petition, that 
they are depending on some outside means of which 
they themselves are not to be the agents; on some 
great outpouring of God’s Spirit which shall 
touch the missions before it touches them; or some 
coming of the Son of man which shall scare the 
world into submission, without first producing an 
advent wakening of the Church. The expectation 
seems to be that God will act on unconverted hu- 
manity in some vagrant outside way, instead of 
the inside method, which is by and through hu- 
manity itself. But, beloved, no other spirit is 
ever going to give success to missionary work, than 
the Spirit Which was given first, without measure, 
to the Man Christ Jesus, and then becomes resi- 
dent in you and me. The Divine Spirit will use 
human effort, human speech, human sympathy, 


* For a full elaboration of this principle see a great 
Sermon by Horace Bushnell on Salvation by man, 


172 KEEPING THE FAITH 


human sacrifice in the spread of the Gospel and 
the Church, and if the agents are not ready, then 
the work must tarry until they can be prepared. 
If it takes twenty centuries more to subdue the 
world to God, then twenty centuries the work must 
have, for it never will be accomplished, either in 
twenty or twenty thousand cycles of a hundred 
years, unless it be done by the agency of men 
whom the Spirit has empowered. 

II. Now all this puts a very great, and a very 
personal responsibility on us for that part of the 
missionary work of which we think to-day. The 
home, domestic work is our own especial and ex- 
clusive charge and we, American Christians, are 
the only agents whom God will ever use in its ac- 
complishment. Ought we not to see that we are 
instruments properly prepared and meet for the 
Master’s use? It is a great work which He has 
for us to do, to subdue this continent to God; to 
overcome the opposition of the Midianites in our 
own diocese and in every quarter of the land, to 
contend with the ignorance, indifference, world- 
liness, and unbelief that everywhere abound; to 
carry the Gospel and the Church to the hut on 
the plantation, the wigwam on the prairie and the 
hamlet in our convocation field. This is a work 
of very wide proportions, and one which makes 


KEEPING THE FAITH rE 


large demands on the resources we have in hand. 
Who is sufficient for these things? We are suf- 
ficient, if we are only the willing and prepared 
instruments of the Lord. And what is needed 
in the instrument to become an effective wielder 
of the Lord’s power? (1) One thing needful is 
the courage which comes from faith in God, and 
dependence on His ready help. Go back again to 
the day of Midian. We are told that the Lord 
bade Gideon to say in the ears of the people, 
“Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return, 
and depart early from Mount Gilead.” Only the 
courageous were allowed in the band detailed for 
actual service, the rest were mere ciphers; and so 
the Christian or the Church that lacks mettle, that 
is afraid to go forward and make large ventures 
for the Lord, that is unable to meet difficulty and 
danger with intrepidity and daring faith, is 
counted as nothing in the numbering of the instru- 
ments of the Lord. To be really efficient we must 
ever remember that the battle is the Lord’s not 
ours, that it is His Cause and Kingdom we are 
asked to champion in this land, and that cowardice, 
in such a cause, is without excuse and can only 
arise from distrust in the leader to whom confi- 
dence is due. (2) Another qualification is the 
hopefulness which comes from the assurance of 


174 KEEPING THE FAITH 


ultimate success. If the work be God’s then it 
cannot fail, He will carry it on to a favorable re- 
sult, as soon as we are ready to be the channels of 
His power. New difficulties, new forces of oppo- 
sition, theoretical or practical, may continually 
arise, but they will often slay each other, as did 
the Midianites of old, while Israel looked calmly 
on; and those which perish not in the confusion, 
will certainly be overcome by the ordered attack 
of the champions of the Lord. As surely as there 
is a God in Israel, this missionary work shall pros- 
per and accomplish the end it has in view. The 
only question is whether the consummation must 
wait till better instruments than we shall be raised 
up to bring it on. (8) Still another thing needed 
is the spirit of consecration and_ self-sacrifice 
which comes of personal love to Him Whose cause 
we espouse. The Lord Jesus wants the service of 
love, in the agents He employs, and back to His 
Cross He would have us go, that we may feel 
its constraint, and have the flame of an answer- 
ing love enkindled in the heart. When we think 
of His unstinted Sacrifice on the Cross, then the 
consecration, the responsive offering, are not diffi- 
cult to make. The spirit then burns with the 
desire to reciprocate “the love Who once in time 
was slain, pierced through and through with bit- 


KEEPING THE FAITH 175 


ter woe,” and we gladly give ourselves, our time 
and strength and sympathy, and best affections 
to the cause for which the Precious Blood was 
shed. The worldly substance is included in the 
offering; and when the heart is touched by the 
divine fire, the giving is free and generous and 
marked even by the profuse self-sacrifice which 
the Cross displayed. And so, let us all go to 
the Cross and open our hearts once more to its 
appeal and claim. Oh, that we might feel the 
touch of the fire of love and take up the mis- 
sionary work with a freshly kindled enthusiasm. 
For that the work is waiting. All things else 
are in readiness. The Gospel, the Church, the 
missionary organization, the missionary leaders, 
the trumpets, the pitchers, and the Sword of 
the Lord. Nothing is needed but the Holy Fire 
in the instruments which the Divine Leader wishes 
to employ. Deeply do those of us who are spe- 
cially set apart to be His agents and ministers 
feel our need of the unction from above, which is 
comfort, life, and fire of love. Profoundly do we 
feel that we must be indwelt by the Divine Spirit, 
if we are to see any fruit of our labors, if the 
word spoken by our mouth shall have good suc- 
cess. Unless He shall give the heart of love and 
the tongue of flame, the word we speak will never 


176 KEEPING THE FAITH 


burn its way into the hearts of the people, and we 
shall not reach the masses, which as one has said 
are both the despair and fascination of the Chris- 
tian Church. Long ago did David see the rela- 
tion of the divine indwelling to ministerial suc- 
cess when He put up the prayer, “Take not Thy 
Spirit from me, establish me with Thy free Spirit, 
then shall I teach Thy ways unto the wicked and 
sinners shall be converted unto Thee.” Surely 
what we most need is not new machinery, better 
methods, more shining gifts, but the Divine Spirit 
within the wheels, the celestial fire wrapping it- 
self around the faculties and powers, and filling us 
with a glowing enthusiasm, which nothing shall be 
able to resist. Not by might nor by power, but 
by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts, and for the 
touch of that Finger of God let us all make an 
open way. 

Let me close with an illustration borrowed in 
part from a missionary speaker in the diocese of 
London. There is a walled city, and a besieging 
army encamped against it. How will they take 
the city? The besiegers will try, of course, to 
batter down the walls. But with what? With 
cannon? Ah, but there is no power in the can- 
non. A child may ride upon it, and before its 
mouth the ox may graze unharmed. But there is 


KEEPING THE FAITH ere 


the ball. Yes, but that too is ponderous and inert 
and has no power unless you throw it through the 
air. There is the powder. But there is no power 
in that, if you leave it in the chest or scatter it on 
the ground. But take that powerless powder, and 
put it into the powerless cannon, and put in the 
powerless ball, and ram them in; then, one spark 
of fire, and the powder is a flash of lightning, and 
the ball a thunderbolt that goes with resistless im- 
pact against the frowning walls. Beloved, we 
have all that we need of instrumentality and ma- 
chinery for our aggressive work. All that is want- 
ing is the baptism of fire. Having that, we shall 
soon capture all the strong positions of Midian, 
and effect a great deliverance in the land. May 
the Lord grant it to us all, and kindle anew our 
missionary fervor by the touch of the fire which 
He brought down upon the earth, and lighted on 
the altar of His Cross. 


SERMON XVI 
GENEROSITY IN RELIGION 


Give a portion to seven and also to eight; for 
thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the 
earth.—Kcclesiastes 11: 2. 


Sa] HERE is a class of people who are careful 
never to overstep the limits of what they 

esteem as strict and unavoidable duty. 
There is a calculating morality which is much oc- 
eupied with defining the boundaries of obligation, 
and is satisfied with doing just so much and no 
more than is required to escape the lash of con- 
science because of violation of the law. The ques- 
tion it ordinarily puts, is how much can be pared 
away from Church precept, or divine command, 
and treated as unnecessary or superfluous, without 
altogether invalidating the obedience, or becoming 
liable to the charge of serious shortcoming? The 
service which it renders God or man is a com- 
puted one, and is ordinarily gauged by a calcula- 


tion of the profits to be gained either in this world 
178 


KEEPING THE FAITH 179 


or the world to come. It is anxious to reach but 
never goes beyond the conventional standards of 
excellence erected in society and the Church, and, 
of course, it wants to pass muster in the last great 
review of human life and conduct by the Judge 
of all. To religionists of such a class Solomon 
the wise has a word of counsel in the text which 
it is worth our while most seriously to ponder. 
He tells us to do our duty, to come up to the strict 
demands of conscience or the world’s opinion, but 
not to stop with this, but to go further and render 
God and man a free, liberal, uncaleulating serv- 
ice. His words apply first of all to the duty of 
benevolence. Just before, he had said, “Cast thy 
bread upon the waters for thou shalt find it after 
many days,” and when he goes on to say in the 
text, “give a portion to seven, also to eight,” he 
refers primarily, of course, to the distribution of 
the food to needy souls, and exhorts us to be 
liberal in our giving. But the principle in the 
text is of wider application, and may be extended 
to every department of religious responsibility. 
Seven in the Bible is a fixed, definite number, and 
always has associated with it the idea of com- 
pletion or fulfilment. It represents here what 
necessary duty demands. Eight, goes beyond, and 
carries on the mind to the indefinite, and suggests 


180 KEEPING THE FAITH 


something more and better than the bare fulfiling 
of positive requirement. A liberal, unstinted 
service is what the wise man intends to recommend 
and so what he leads us to think of, is generosity 
in religion, the spirit that refuses to calculate and 
ask, how much must I do to escape punishment, 
and gain a reward, but rather puts the question, 
how much may I do to please God, and for love’s 
dear sake alone? 

It might seem that the subject now presented is 
an unpractical one because there are few or none 
who reach the standard indicated by the “seven,” 
and come up to the full requirement of the law. 
All are guilty of shortcoming, and so what room 
is there for generosity in religion, when none can 
be even just? But let it be noticed that generosity 
has to do with the disposition, the motive, the 
quality of the service rather than with its quan- 
tity. It is true that all come short; that none 
can do their full duty as measured by the high 
standard of God’s holy law. But it makes a vast 
difference whether the motive with which we try 
is_a low and mercenary one which springs only 
from self-interest and aims at reducing the obedi- 
ence to the smallest possible dimensions consistent 
with safety; or is a high and noble one springing 
from love and a desire to make the obedience as 


KEEPING THE FAITH 181 


full and perfect as we can. ‘There is danger that 
the former kind of service should be wholly viti- 
ated in the sight of God, by the refined selfishness 
which prompts it, and that the small-souled servant 
should miss altogether the heavenly reward. 

J. There is great need and abundant room for 
generosity in God’s service, and before speaking of 
it in its relation to the duties which we owe espe- 
cially to Him we may pause on our way to say 
a few words about it bearing on the duties we owe 
to our neighbor. In the discharge of these duties 
there is daily demand for the exercise of the spirit 
recommended in the text. And it is needed in the 
whole range of duties which belong to the second 
table of the law. It should be shown as we have 
already said in the sphere of charitable giving by 
which we try to succour those who need or desire 
our help. When the really deserving poor man 
asks for your assistance, do not deal out the mere 
scanty dole which may keep him from starvation, 
but bestow the liberal gift which will procure a full 
meal and leave something over for the next. Gen- 
erosity will require us to give the portion to seven 
and also to eight; and not to stop with the bare 
relief of present want, but to inquire into the 
causes of it and endeavor to remove them and 
put the needy one in a position in which he can 


182 KEEPING THE FAITH 


help himself. The same generosity should be 
shown in our judgments of our neighbor when he 
seems to betray some defect in temper or character 
or is accused of the commission of some fault. 
If his guilt is not established, give him the benefit 
of the doubt. If it is, condemn the wrong-doing, 
but be generous enough to refrain from the public 
expression of your judgment where it can do no 
good, and to give him the benefit of any extenu- 
ations of his guilt which may afterwards appear. 
If your neighbor has done you an injury, then you 
have the best of opportunities for generous dealing 
with him. Your Christianity obliges you to for- 
give him, but what is the kind of forgiveness you 
will bestow? If you say, I will not forgive un- 
til he comes and asks my pardon, and only grant 
a grudging forgiveness when he does come and 
makes apology, then you forgive only up to seven. 
If however you say, I will not wait for apology, 
but will show beforehand a kindly Christian spirit, 
and volunteer forgiveness that I may win the 
wrong-doer and melt his heart into penitence for 
his sin, then you forgive until seventy times seven ; 
and show yourself a true follower of Him who 
did not wait for men to come and ask forgiveness 
for their injuries to Him, but prepared and pub- 
lished His forgiveness long before men even 


KEEPING THE FAITH 183 


wanted it, in order that He might break down 
their enmity and bring them back to God. Gen- 
erosity is something more than mere magnanim- 
ity, or the greatness of soul that rises above injury 
or insult; it goes further and takes hearty interest 
in the spiritual welfare of the offender and seeks 
his improvement rather than his punishment; and 
this is the spirit which as followers of Christ we 
ought to try to cherish. We should be generous 
in our construction of a neighbor’s conduct, gen- 
erous in our interpretation of his motives, gener- 
ous in our treatment of his failings, generous in 
our settlement of supposed affronts, generous in 
our efforts to advance his true and lasting good. 
Such a spirit promotes good will, subdues ani- 
mosities, prevents brawls, and unites any com- 
munity in the bond of charity and peace. What a 
spirit for the young men of a university town to 
carry into practise! There is a Spanish proverb 
which says, ‘““He who returns the first blow is the 
man who begins the quarrel.” That is just the 
point in which the injured man has the game in his 
power, and if he have generosity and dignity 
enough, can almost always without shame and even 
with true honor, prevent the strife. It is a beau- 
tiful spectacle when in the brawny contests of the 
athletic field, one sees a stricken player refusing 


184 KEEPING THE FAITH 


to return the blow of an excited or irritated op- 
ponent, and making such excuse for the offender as 
will readily occur to a generous mind. Such gen- 
erosity conquers_the antagonist and infects the 
whole field with a spirit of kindness and good will. 
Let generosity universally be practised, and it 
would weld human society together into one great 
brotherhood. It would bathe the world in a sheen 
of light and happiness the focal point of which 
would be in each generous soul. The liberal soul 
shall be made fat. What it casts upon the waters 
shall be found again. What it bestows shall be 
returned with interest. “Give it to others and 
they will give to you, good measure pressed down, 
shaken together and running over, shall men give 
into your bosom.” 

II. But we go on to say a few words about 
generosity in its relation to the duties we owe to 
God, and thus considered, it is of even wider ap- 
plication than in the sphere of obligation to men. 
There is nothing that God requires of us that may 
not be touched and beautified by such a spirit. 
He is pleased with nothing that does not spring 
from it. For cold, loveless, measured obedience, 
for dull, dreary, drudging duty, He has little of 
benediction or reward. He wants a free, filial, 
and spontaneous service, and although He may 


KEEPING THE FAITH 185 


accept a coerced and computed one in the ele- 
mentary stage of religious discipline, He is not. 
satisfied unless we are trained in time into some- 
thing better. The law is our schoolmaster to 
bring us unto Christ, and we are poor scholars 
unless we are brought by its coercion to live and 
learn from higher motives. We should be led on 
by the example of Christ and the guidance of the 
spirit into a generous performance of all Godward 
duties. We should be generous in the time we 
devote to God’s worship, the time we give to pri- 
vate prayer, to the study of His Word, and to com- 
munion with Him in the Holy Sacrament. We 
should be generous in good works, generous in the 
giving of our substance to promote God’s cause, 
generous in the building and adorning of His 
church, generous in the whole range of these higher 
duties—thinking more of God’s honor in them all 
than of our own selfish interest or advantage. 
And yet how far short we often come of such a 
generous spirit! How often men abridge and cut 
down their religious observances to the lowest 
point within the limits of Christian hberty or of 
human safety. How often they secretly ask them- 
selves, how little can I do and yet not altogether 
break with God, or lose my hope of heaven? 
Will it not be enough if I come to church when it 


186 KEEPING THE FAITH 


suits my convenience, commune once or twice a 
year, omit attendance on festivals and fasts, give 
a little something in charity now and then, do a 
kind deed when it comes within my way, give God 
a little fragment of my time and strength, and 
reserve the bulk of it for business, society, or 
pleasure? God is very merciful, and none of us 
have a right to say how mean and scant we may 
make our obedience, and yet reach a scant salva- 
tion, but we can say at least of the spirit that 
prompts to such’ a course, that it is ungenerous. 
It is not treating God as He treats us. He giveth 
to all men liberally and upbraideth not. Think 
of His uniform and unbounded beneficence! Con- 
sider with what unsparing hand He has provided 
all the things that support our lives and minister 
to our happiness. ‘Think how generous and even 
lavish He is in the supply of the fruits of the gar- 
den, the orchard, and the field. Think how every- 
where He spreads the verdure and the beauty of 
the flowers, making the mountains rock and the 
forest jungle to break forth into bloom, and be 
satisfied if once in a thousand years one of His 
children should happen to pass that way, and come 
upon the lonely flower with surprised delight. 
Reflect upon the wondrous unstinted generosity of 


God displayed in redemption. Think of the 


KEEPING THE FAITIL 187 


vast, infinite love that prompted the great sacrifice 
of the Cross. Measure if you can the breadth, the 
length, the depth, the height of the love which 
passeth knowledge, the breadth extending to all 
men of every age and class and having a wideness 
like the wideness of the sea; the length which is as 
long as eternity and unwearied as the patience of 
the long suffering God; the depth which is as deep 
as the lowest abyss of human degradation and sin; 
the height which is as high as the heavenly places 
in Christ Jesus to which it would exalt the beings 
itredeems. Think of the profusion, the generosity 
of the sacrifice that such a love prompted the Re- 
deemer to make and which would not be satisfied 
to limit and cut down its sufferings to the precise 
amount which was needed for redemption or tender 
a bare equivalent for the debt we had incurred. 
His sacrifice knew no bounds. He provided a 
plenteous redemption: He was profuse in His 
sufferings, lavish in the outpouring of His Blood, 
for He would make us know something of the 
vastness and the power of the love that brought 
Him down from heaven, to seek and save the lost. 
Think again how generous God is in His dealing 
with us as individuals as He tries to apply to us 
one by one the benefits of the great Redemption. 
Reflect how He is daily saving us, keeping us from 


188 KEEPING THE FAITH 


perishing in our transgressions, “forgiving all our 
sins, saving our life from destruction, and crown- 
ing us with mercy and loving-kindness.” Remem- 
ber how He pursues us in our wanderings and 
tries to bring us back again to His heavenly fold. 
Reflect how He takes not His Holy Spirit from 
us, in spite of all the slights and disrespects by 
which we grieve Him, how He continues to sue 
and plead and warn with unwearied patience and 
unremitting love. Oh, the vast, wondrous, splen- 
did generosity of God in dealing with us His 
children! Shall we be sparing and sordid and 
grudging, in return? Shall we scant and scrimp 
the time, the strength, the interest, the sympathy, 
the money, the heart’s affection we offer in response 
to His great sacrifice for us? Forbid it, every 
high and noble sentiment of the heart! Let us 
go away, to give the portion to seven and also to 
eight, and even to the instances without number in 
which we have opportunity to be generous to God 
and man. 


SERMON XVII 
THE SPIRIT OF THE CHILD 


And he took a chald and set him i, the midst 
of them.—-St. Mark 9: 36. 


SSE4HIS is what Christmas virtually does for 
GF us every year, and has done again on this 

blessed morning. It has restored to us 
not only the memory of the Child, long absent 
from these earthly scenes, but has also set Him 
spiritually present in our midst, as the object of 
our thought, affection, and adoration. The In- 
carnation is of no age but for all time. The Birth 
of Jesus Christ renews and repeats itself in every 
period of human history, and every family in 
earth’s wide bounds may say to-day, “Unto us a 
child is born, unto us a son is given.” In many 
a family the regret is felt that the home is a child- 
less one, but all may rejoice to-day in the gift of 
a Son. On the occasion referred to in the text, a 
child was used to teach us something of the nature 


of the heavenly Kingdom, and the spirit in which 
189 


190 KEEPING THE FAITH 


it should be received. But this was done far more 
fully and suggestively when the teacher himself, 
the Child of Bethlehem, came into the world, and 
was set in the midst of the human generations, as 
their Guide, their Revealer of the Kingdom and 
its King. J want you to sit with me again on this 
Christmas morning at the feet of this Holy Child, 
and learn from Him something of the spirit in 
which we should receive the truth and grace He 
eame to bring; and so, drawn again by the angel 
voices and the chiming stars, we will all go to 
Bethlehem, and in the Presence of the Holy Babe, 
try to drink in something of what He wishes us to 
absorb and express in the temper of our religion. 
The one comprehensive thing which He wishes 
us to gain and keep is, then, the spirit of the 
child. This, the Holy One of God possessed in its 
perfection. He came to us not only in the out- 
ward form and fashion of the child, but also as 
having the inner child spirit, which He preserved 
in all its fragrance and beauty through all the 
stages of His life. His infant days, indeed, were 
soon left behind. He passed through childhood, 
youth, and reached the full development of the 
man, but never in the passage did He lose the 
meekness, the innocence, the tenderness, the filial 
love, by which the child spirit is expressed. He 


KEEPING THE FAITH 191 


had come to reveal something of the nature of 
God to mankind, and to show us what God wishes 
us all to be, and He knew that this could be better 
done by the exhibition of such childlike attributes, 
than through any display of manhood’s might or 
majesty, or by any exertion of superhuman power. 
Men often want God to make Himself more obvi- 
ous, more distinctly apparent by some overwhelm- 
ing sign or exercise of almightiness, but what, 
my friends, are the highest attributes of the Divine 
Being ?—By what is God best known? Is it by 
the display of tremendous force, huge bulk, daz- 
zling physical glory, that overpowers the sense, or 
is it by the exhibition of goodness, holiness, sym- 
pathy, love that moves and melts the heart? 
Surely these spiritual and moral qualities are the 
more divine. There is more of God in a deed of 
loving-kindness, in a throb of child love or mother 
tenderness, than all that unloving strength or 
brawn or brain can do, or mere material force 
can accomplish. The force may awe and crush 
us but it will not call forth our worship, or affec- 
tion. And so, our Lord’s manifestation of God 
was chiefly through the showing forth of moral 
quality, rather than of miraculous power, and this, 
in none of its revealings, ever lost the spirit of the 
child. Neither the world’s hot breath nor the fires 


192 KEEPING THE FAITH 


of the Cross could dry up the dew of His birth, 
which was of the womb of the morning. The 
early filial love would find vent even in one of 
the seven sayings from the Cross (addressed to 
His Blessed Mother), and so the words, “Thou 
hast the dew of thy youth,” were true of Him to 
the very end. Now, my friends, He wishes us, 
through all of life’s changes to preserve the same 
spirit. Without something of it we cannot enter 
His Kingdom nor know anything of its blessed- 
ness. We usually begin our new life in God with 
a little of the child spirit, but as life goes on and 
we know more of care and sin, and proud and in- 
dependent reason takes the helm, we often get far 
away from the peace and brightness of the early 
days, and drift into strange regions of thought and 
feeling, where we find little to satisfy the mighty 
longings of the heart. But wherever we may 
have wandered Christmas is a call to return to the 
days of our youth. It sets the child once more in 
our midst, and makes us hear again the angel sing- 
ers and the glad tidings which they brought, and 
it bids us go back to the festal days of old and let 
a breath from the freshness and innocence of life’s 
morning beat again upon the fevered brow. Re- 
member, O remember, those bright golden days, 
but the memory will do us no good unless it shall 


KEEPING THE FAITH 193 


have for us a reviving spiritual power and help to 
renew in us the spirit of the child; and there are 
two or three things included in such renewal which 
I can only briefly mention. 

(1) One is a return to the simplicity of the 
child. We often wander far from the early 
simple-mindedness in religious thought and prac- 
tice and get into regions where thought is con- 
fused, perplexed, and complicated with uncertain 
speculations on various kindred subjects. Christ- 
mas is a call to recover the simplicity of Christ, 
to go back to the plain fundamental truths and 
facts on which the Gospel rests and our hopes are 
founded. ‘The child’s thought about God is al- 
ways simple. He always conceives of God as a 
living Person, and He usually thinks of Him as a 
tender-loving Father. It is left to the grown man 
to think of God as an impersonal existence, as 
mere force or fate, or blind law—or admitting 
Him to be a person, to know no more of Him 
than can be put into logical propositions formu- 
lated by the mind. The child is set again in our 
midst to teach us a worthier conception of the Di- 
vine Being. He bids us go back to the old days 
of wonder, reverence, and simple-hearted faith; to 
hear again a gospel free from any scientific or 
metaphysical speculations which may have been 


194 KEEPING THE FAITH 


imported into it, to receive and rest upon the 
simple, easy elementary truths connected with the 
beginning of the Gospel as preached by the cheru- 
bim singers from their pulpit in the sky. Hear 
it again: “Behold I bring you good tidings of 
great joy which shall be to all people. For unto 
you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour 
which is Christ the Lord. Glory to God in the 
highest, and on earth, peace, good will toward 
men.” (2) Again our return should be to the 
trustfulness of the child. To this the Christmas 
bells are also recalling us. It is natural in a 
child to feel confidence in and dependence on a 
parent, whether the parent be human or divine, 
It is the older man or woman who doubts, disbe- 
lieves, and ceases to confide in the father. The 
child trusts because he thinks the parent is good 
and wise, and will not knowingly do wrong. 
“The ingenuous child corrected will not fly the 
angry father’s face but climbs more nigh, and 
quenches with His tears the flaming eye.” But 
how often the early trustfulness is lost! How is 
it with ourselves, my dear friends, have we kept 
the child spirit in all the hard and stern expe- 
riences of our later life, the trials and troubles 
through which we have been forced to pass? How 
was it when we lighted the Christmas fire on the 


KEEPING THE FAITH 195 


eve of this blessed day, and thought of the dear 
ones who in former yules rejoiced with us in its 
cheer and glow, but have now gone into the shadow 
and silence, never to return, and fill again the 
vacant seat in the lonely home? Was our trust 
in the Heavenly Father still unshaken? Did we 
still believe that there was infinite love and wis- 
dom behind the chastisement of our peace? Oh, 
my friends, the Child is once more set before us 
that He may renew in us the spirit of trust, for 
He has come to show us the loving Father’s face, 
and to reveal all the blessed truths on which the 
trust is stayed. (3) Yet once more He is here 
to renew in us His wondrous joy. Perhaps some 
of us are remembering to-day the joys of other 
Christmas seasons in the years gone by and are 
disappointed that the festival does not seem to 
bring us the same exhilaration, the same bright 
and happy feeling that it did in the long ago. 
The early joy seems to have withered and faded 
from the heart. But, my friends, this need not be 
so. The Bible speaks of an everlasting joy, and 
the Christmas rejoicing may have the everlasting- 
ness in it. It may lose indeed something of its 
emotional character, its superficial mirth and glad- 
ness, but it ought to grow year by year in its deep- 
seated affectional quality, as a source of moral 


196 KEEPING THE FAITH 


strength and an unfailing inspiration to holy 
living. If our joy in the Lord is less full and 
blessed than it used to be the Holy Child is set 
again in our midst that He may renew it. He is 
the manifestation of God’s great love to man and 
there is nothing like a new knowledge of this love 
to create a new joy. In a touching work of fic- 
tion, an old man who was passing his life in soli- 
tude, with no one to call forth his affection, and 
with no absorbing interest save the consuming 
thirst of gold, suddenly sees on his hearth, one cold 
Christmas Eve, an unknown helpless child; and 
he finds in the love and tenderness which it 
awakens, a balm for all bitterness, a fresh unfail- 
ing fountain of life and joy. It is a true parable 
of what the Christ Child may do for all of us. 
He can create and recreate the mystical joy of a 
love, freshly shed abroad in the heart, and so, as 
out of all the toil and trial and failure in life’s bat- 
tle, out of all the wandering into strange realms of 
thought or vicissitudes of experience, we come 
back to the birth scene of the Holy Child, let us 
put up the earnest prayer, “Restore unto me the 
joy of Thy salvation.” We have only to confess 
the wandering with a contrite heart and put forth 
a fresh exercise of faith in a personal Saviour to 
have a fulfilling of the prayer; and if it be ful- 


KEEPING THE FAITH 197 


filled, the life of peace and joy in God will be be- 
gun again, the mystic melody of the nativity will 
be freshly wakened in the soul, its silent chords 
will respond once more to the melodious numbers 
of the angelic symphony like the chiming of 
church bells which have been hushed for a time, 
but which swing again, in the old church tower on 
the blessed day when Christ was born. O, ye 
weary sorrowing peoples. everywhere, take the 
Christmas Child into the darkened chambers 
where you have shed the tears of disappointment 
and thwarted hope. He bids your sorrows cease. 
He speaks again of good will and peace. 


“Fond joyous hopes were once your own, 
For you the Christmas candles shone, 
When faith was strong and new; 

Come, Christmas is the turning day, 
To light your long earth-darkened way.” 


Some of us will now be coming to the altar 
for our Christmas Communion. The Holy 
Child will be there that we may receive Him 
as our own. Fold Him to the heart in the warm 
embrace of a loving faith. Ask him to be your 
leader in all the future way. We know not what 
the future may have in store. ‘For some the 
sunshine, some the shade,” but 


198 KEEPING THE FAITH 


“For each and all the sone: 
The song of a Child Who once was laid 
In lowly manger by mother maid, 
In the midst of an angel throng: 
Nothing we are and little we know: 
And less than little we see: 
What matters that if with hearts aglow, 
We hear the carol of long ago, 
With a new-born ecstasy.” 


Hear it yet once more: ‘Unto us a Child is 
born, a Son is given. Glory to God in the 
highest and on earth peace, good will toward 
men.” 

But the Holy Child may not only be a Restorer 
of individual joy but also of the joy of the nation 
and the world He came to bless and save. When 
we think of the present condition of the nations, 
their discords, confusions, and contentions, a 
cloud seems to overspread the Christmas sky and 
rob the warring peoples of a former hopefulness 
and joy. We seem so far from the fulfilling of 
the Christmas prophecy and promise, ‘Peace on 
earth good will to men.” The war is over but 
the brotherhood of the nations is broken; and 
instead of being ruled by a principle of mutual 
helpfulness and love, they seem actuated by a 
spirit of selfish rivalry and fratricidal strife. 


KEEPING THE FAITH 199 


But let us not lose hope that the nations, our 
own included, will in time become possessed of 
a more loving child-like mind. Let us trust that 
everything that hinders their unity and brother- 
hood—their jealousies, enmities, selfish am- 
bitions—will yield to the subduing and _ peace- 
making influences of the Messiah’s birth. Re- 
call one of the prophecies which seem to make 
this sure: ‘‘The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, 
the leopard le down with the kid, the calf, the 
young lion and the fatling together. And a little 
child shall lead them.” ‘These wild, ferocious 
animals are but figures of the untamed nature, 
the fierce disposition, the implacable temper of 
human beings out of Christ; but the promise is, 
they shall be so changed in nature and temper, 
that they shall follow the Child, become partakers 
of His spirit and sharers of His gentleness and 
peace. God grant that this may come true. Our 
only hope for a restored brotherhood of nations, a 
preserved and purified civilization for the world, 
ig in the leadership of the Child. The Incarna- 
tion, Birth, the Sacrifice of Christ are our only 
hope. The attempts to secure the blessed ends by 
treaty, by pact, by political sagacity, by interna- 
tional agreement, or commercial intercourse must 
all fail unless behind them all is the spirit of Him 


200 KEEPING THE FAITH 


Who was born beneath the calm Judean stars and 
brought down God’s peace and love to our dis- 
cordant earth. Let us hope and pray through- 
out our Christmas-tide that the love and gentle- 
ness of the Child shall at last prevail, and that all 
nations shall own His peaceful rule. 


SERMON XVIII 
MEN OF VISION AND MEN OF ACTION 


Behold this dreamer cometh.—Genesis 37:19. 


—— 


S HESE words are spoken of Joseph, the 
Gy story of whose life and dreams, read once 

more in our appointed lessons, is one of 
which we never tire. Speaking broadly, we may 
say there are two kinds of men—the men of vision 
and the men of action. The one look forward 
to the future, the other are occupied with the 
present. The one dwell on hopes, ideals, con- 
ceptions of things as they ought to be, and may 
in time become, the other grapple with things as 
they are, and are content if they can deal 
successfully with the duties and demands of 
the present hour. Joseph belonged to the former 
class. Alone of all his family he was a man of 
vision. His brothers were hard, practical men, 
absorbed with the work and adventure of their 
shepherd life, and thinking only of expedients by 


which they might escape the hardships of the 
201 


202 KEEPING THE FAITH 


famine which had now begun to press them sorely. 
Joseph also felt the pinch of want, but he had a 
faith which looked beyond the present need to a 
full and prosperous future. He had fed his im- 
agination on the hopes and promises held out to 
his progenitors, and he had dim prophetic intima- 
tions of the splendid destiny in reserve for their 
descendants. In the working out of God’s pur- 
poses he saw that he was to have an important part 
and place, while his brothers should be of lesser 
use in the accomplishing of the great design; and 
when he made this known to them, their envy was 
aroused and they conspired to slay him. They 
feared that there might be some significance in 
his dreams, but they would make sure that nothing 
should come of them by making way with the 
dreamer. But it turned out that Providence was 
on his side, and kept him alive, and made the ful- 
filing of his dreams the salvation of his brethren. 
The dream proved after all to be the best practical 
wisdom, and the dreamer became the saviour of 
his family and a type of the Redeemer of the 
world. Let us think a little while this morning 
of the place of the dreamer in the wisely planned 
scheme by which God carries on the improvement 
of the race and the order of the world. 

I. He is apt to be slighted. We commonly 


KEEPING THE FAITH 203 


value at a much higher rate the man of practical 
sense who is governed by actual need and present 
use, than the man who makes much of ideals and 
pictures of a better future, and is continually peer- 
ing into worlds not realized. But on a little 
further thought we have to admit that the man of 
vision has had a great part to play in the achieve- 
ment and progress of our wonderful age and that 
we must depend very much on him for future 
gains. ‘l’o whom are we most indebted for the ad- 
vance in civilization in these modern days? 
Surely not to the drudge but to the dreamer. We 
owe most to the men who saw the steamship in the 
kettle, the car in the current, the new language in 
the wires, the angel in the marble, the hero in the 
child, and a family of God in the savage tribe or 
the emigrant horde in our own frontiers. For 
our material, intellectual, and moral progress we 
are greatly beholden to the men of vision, and we 
cannot dispense with them in any department of 
our life and action. Science needs the dream, as 
well as the apparatus, the experiment, and induc- 
tion from facts. Religion needs it as well as the 
practical rule and regimen of life. There is no 
great achievement which was not first a dream. 
It was before the splendid university buildings. 
It was before the rearing of the enlarged and beau- 


204 KEEPING THE FAITH 


tiful church in which we are worshiping. It is 
the secret of all improvement. In everything, it 
is the function of the dreamer to discover an ideal 
perfection which is possible to be reached, and to 
the quest of which our best energies should be 
given. We instinctively feel that behind the 
things we see in this fleeting world there is a 
reality and perfection which the visible forms but 
partially express and it is the office of the man of 
vision to help us look beyond the forms to the 
archetypal patterns after which they are modeled, 
and to kindle hope that we may reach their ex- 
cellence and glory. We value our poets and 
painters in proportion as they are able to do this 
for us, and are only satisfied when they disclose, or 
at least suggest, the richness and beauty of the 
ideal state which lies behind the actual, and arouse 
enthusiasm in the search for it. We gauge our 
religious teachers by the same standard, and most 
esteem them when they will not let us be satisfied 
with what has been attained but enamour heart 
and mind with the best that can possibly be ob- 
tained in character and goodness. It is ever the 
high office of the dreamer to tempt us by an allur- 
ing vision to seek nobler and better things, to 
stimulate us to greater effort, to waken hope and 


KEEPING THE FAITH 205 


enthusiasm, and to prevent our losing heart amid 
the hard, stern facts of our realized condition. 

II. But let me specify more particularly a few 
of the practical uses of the dream. 

(1) And I first remark that we need it to coun- 
teract the depressing and hardening effect of our 
worldly work, and struggle for existence. The 
work of the toiling millions, how hopeless and 
joyless it often seems to be! How it crushes out 
life’s nobler enthusiasms, and wears away the life 
itself. What multitudes are working in mills and 
mines and kitchens and shops, because a hard, 
stern necessity is laid upon them; and feeling all 
the while, as Kingsley puts it, that “men must 
labor and women must weep, and the sooner it’s 
over, the sooner to sleep, and good-bye to the bar 
and its moaning.” May God speed the noble ef- 
forts which are being made to improve the condi- 
tions of the workers; but may it not be possible 
for them so to idealize the work itself as to re- 
lieve it of much of its tedium and oppressive 
weight? Surely we may all remember that 
work is noble; we may throw a high and holy mo- 
tive into it, whether it be work of brawn or brain, 
and esteem it not as mere dull drudgery forced 
upon us by cruel necessity or the greed of an em- 


206 KEEPING THE FAITH 


ployer, but as something done in the name and for 
the sake of the Lord and Master of us all. We 
may view the work as a service and sacrifice ren- 
dered to humanity and to God Himself, and we 
may look on to the perfected state of human soci- 
ety (foretold by all the holy prophets since the 
world began), when poverty, vice, and wretched- 
ness shall be banished and righteousness, justice, 
and true brotherhood shall everywhere prevail. 
Such a dream transfigures work, and gives us in- 
spiration for it. But where there is no vision the 
people perish, smothered down by the hard condi- 
tions into the slough of despond, on which no 
light falls and over which no breeze sweeps to in- 
vigorate and cheer. “Hitch thy wagon to a star,” 
as Emerson advises, and it will escape the mire of 
the slough, and work will feel an elevating and im- 
pelling force unknown before. 

(2) Again we need the dream in the more dis- 
tinctively Christian and spiritual work to which 
we are called; and first in the work of our own 
spiritual culture and advancement—(in our efforts 
to reach a higher degree of sanctity than we have 
yet attained )—How often we are disappointed in 
this work! How often defeated in the battle with 
temptation, in the attempts to subdue the besetting 
sin, in the effort to practise humility or some other 


KEEPING THE FAITH 207 


grace of the Christ-hike mind! We sometimes al- 
most despair of ever becoming any better or holier 
than we now are, and we do need the vision to 
countervail the discouraging effect of all the fail- 
ure and imperfection, and make us take heart and 
persevere. And so let us sometimes view ourselves 
in the light of it. In the midst of the weariness 
and depression of our spiritual conflicts, let us 
sometimes pause, and form a picture of our own 
perfected selves in Jesus Christ our Lord; as freed 
at length from all the faults, the weaknesses, the 
frailties which mar our character and baffle our 
prayers and endeavors, and as having gained all 
the excellence, strength and beauty toward which 
we aspire. Place it all before you, not as a mock- 
ing illusion, but as a real and true picture of your 
possible self, a veritable image of what you may 
become if you will; keep up the struggle to reach 
your ideal perfection and consummation in right- 
eousness, and surely the vision will help to kindle 
your enthusiasm, to put fresh hope, cheer, and in- 
spiration in your efforts, and make you determine 
to persevere till the reality behind the vision is at- 
tained. Where there is no vision the people are 
like to perish, where the vision is they rise supe- 
rior to the things which discourage and drag them 
down, and try to lay hold on eternal life. 


208. KEEPING THE FAITH 


(3) But let us go on to notice how greatly we 
need the dream in our work for others. Such 
work may assume different forms, it may be char- 
itable, missionary, educational, or social, but 
whatever its name, without a vision of the spiritual 
worth of those for whom it is undertaken, it will 
soon droop and drag, and lose its interest for us. 
Those for whom we labor may not seem very at- 
tractive to us, they may be positively unattractive 
and destitute of any charm of character or person, 
but there are none without possibilities of im- 
provement, they all have souls of infinite value, 
they are dear to God, made in His image, and 
they may be re-made after the likeness of His Be- 
loved Son. It is the vision of their spiritual value 
and possibilities that alone can create a sustained 
interest in work in their behalf, and prevent us 
from becoming weary in well-doing| It is this, 
coupled with the vision of the working Christ, that 
puts a quenchless ardor in the heart of the mis- 
sionary, and will not let him lay down his task, 
no matter what difficulties or dangers he may en- 
counter. It is the same vision that keeps the sister 
or social worker from abandoning her work in the 
city slum, and enables her to see behind the rough 
faces and the hard conditions which she meets, the 
capacity for pure feeling and devoted Christian liv- 


KEEPING THE FAITH 209 


ing, which is latent in them. We all do need the 
power of vision, whatever the work in which we 
may engage, and we cannot do without it. Even 
in the work which lies at our own doors, that 
among our friends and neighbors in whom we feel 
a special interest and whose welfare we desire to 
promote. There may be many a defect in those 
with whom we associate, and even in those to 
whom our best affections have been given, but we 
ought not to dwell on the passing imperfection 
but on the possible excellence of their being; on 
the perfection toward which through much fail- 
ure they may be struggling on. You do not see 
your friend in his real and eternal state, but only 
in his passage toward it, and if in the passage 
something of earthliness is clinging to his gar- 
ments, do not be discouraged. Do not give up 
your hope and prayer for him. Idealize him, 
view him as God intended him to be, and if he 
is not thwarting the divine purpose, will actually 
make him to be. That is the way that God views 
us and is able to love us and to account us as 
righteous in His sight because He sees us, as St. 
Augustine says, not as we are but as we are be- 
coming, and if we abide in Christ will surely be. 
In the same way we should see the future in the 
instant when thinking of our friends, discover the 


210 KEEPING THE FAITH 


angel which is hidden in the clay, and then we 
shall be patient with them, and never weary in our 
efforts to promote their welfare. 

(4) We have been speaking only of the office of 
the dream in the work of life; it has its place also 
in life’s sufferings. Of this we cannot speak ex- 
cept to say that it would be quite impossible for 
weary men and women to bear the load of suffer- 
ing and pain with which the life is often weighted 
down if it were not for the solace and support 
which the vision brings. And so, my friends, we 
ought to covet and train the faculty by which the 
vision is perceived. JI need hardly say that this 
faculty is faith, not fancy, and that the dreams of 
which we have been speaking are dreams of faith 
and not mere airy structures which roaming phan- 
tasy may rear. It is the office of the Holy Spirit 
to inspire these dreams, for it was long ago pre- 
dicted that when He should come the young men 
should see visions and the old men should dream 
dreams, and there are none which He inspires 
which will not come true, whether they be dreams 
of our own future or that of the Church or na- 
tion. Take care how you treat the dreamer. Do 
not cast him into the pit or sell him to the Ishmael- 
ites. Listen patiently to him and let him tell 
his dream, and see if it may not concern your own 


KEEPING THE FAITH 2G Bi 


salvation ; and let us covet for ourselves something 
of his range, and power to see the better things 
which are in store. If we are Christ’s and are 
indwelt by His Spirit, then it will be impossible 
to paint the future in too radiant colors. We can- 
not hope or expect too much. Dream on, O 
dreamer, of the beauty, the blessing, and the glory 
which yet shall be. “Eye hath not seen nor ear 
heard, neither have entered into the heart of man 
the things that God hath prepared for them that 
love Him.” Train the spiritual eye on these 
things, walk daily in the light of them. If with- 
out the vision we should all perish, in beholding 
is our life and salvation: for beholding as in a 
glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into 
the same image from glory to glory, as by the 
Spirit of the Lord. 


SERMON XIX 
CO-WORKERS WITH GOD 


We are laborers together with God—I Cor- 
inthians 3: 9, 


sya) HE text implies that God is a working 
being. In the first glimpses we get of 

Him in the Holy Scripture, He is shown 
as employing His mighty powers in the work of 
creation. Later on He is revealed as engaged in 
the works of His providence and grace. Every- 
where in the sacred volume He is shown in His 
activities, His powers, His energies put forth 
to accomplish something, rather than in the 
quietude and secrecy of His absolute being. And 
we get the best knowledge of Him by the study of 
His manifold works, rather than by trying to un- 
derstand the mystery of His attributes or the 
modes of His metaphysical existence. It is usual 
to present the doctrine of the Trinity proposition- 
ally—that is, we try to describe God by a number 


of abstract statements or verbal terms, about the 
212 


KEEPING THE FAITH 213 


unity and triplicity of His being, such as are 
given, for instance, in the articles and creeds. 
But useful as these statements are they do not 
give us the most essential knowledge of the In- 
finite and Holy One. God’s being is a living or- 
ganical working one, and you can no more learn 
what He is by abstract formule respecting Him 
than, you can learn what man is by the the defini- 
tions of psychology. To the abstract notions of 
God we should add the concrete conception of a 
living, active, ever energetic Being, Whose three- 
fold personal powers are ceaselessly and conecur- 
rently employed in carrying on the order of the 
universe and in blessing the inhabitants thereof. 
Our God is eternally employed in works of benefi- 
cence that are never done but are always doing. 
“My Father worketh hitherto and I work.” But 
in the chapter to which we have referred God is 
also represented as having ceased from labor. 
After He had made man, He rested from all the 
work which He created and made. He had now 
attained His end and He wrought no more as He 
had worked before. He abandoned that kind of 
creative work by which He had called the worlds 
into being, and put into them their varied germs 
of life (or, as we may say, creation by fiat), and 
entered into the rest of creation by process, and 


214 KEEPING THE FAITH 


had only to await the issues of the evolutionary 
movements He had started, and sustain and guide 
all things by the word of His power. Why did 
God thus cease from work and enter on a period 
of rest? One reason surely is because He wished 
man to take up the work at the point where He 
resigned it, and carry it on to a further stage. 
Although God had finished His work He pur- 
posely left it in an unfinished state. It was all 
very good so far as it went, but it had not gone so 
far as to reach the ideal point of perfection (and 
completeness) which the Divine Creator intended 
for it. There was still much to be done before 
the earth could become a fitting home for the race 
which was to have dominion over it, and that the 
Holy Ghost, the Perfecter of the works of God, 
was to carry on through man, whom He would use 
as the instrument and agent of His will. And all 
that man has actually accomplished in the way 
of the subjugation and improvement of the planet, 
all that civilization and its handmaid science 
have done for the advancement of the race, and 
the melioration of its earthly state, is to be in- 
cluded in the legacy of works undone by the Crea- 
tor and handed on to man to undertake and 
finish. Of course, if God had so chosen, He 
might have acted very differently. He might 


KEEPING THE FAITH 915 


have made a world in which everything was done 
and made ready for the creature, a world in which 
the swamps were drained, roads were built, the 
forests felled, the cities planted, the trees and 
fields filled with spontaneous fruits sufficient for 
the creature’s need, and all things so prepared for 
man that he had nothing to do but enter into 
and lazily possess his unearned heritage; but that 
was not the course which God pursued. He pur- 
posely left many things undone, that man might 
win the benefit and reward of doing them. Man 
finds his chief dignity and most blessed oppor- 
tunity in the fact that he is a laborer together 
with God. 

If all this be true in the realm of nature, 
it is still more true in the sphere of grace. In 
this God has left very much undone, that man 
may help Him in its doing. He intended from 
the very first to establish His spiritual rule and 
reign in the hearts of men, and to make it univer- 
sal; but when men fell from the ideal which He 
had in mind, what does He do? He simply starts 
a process of recovery which He commits to the 
slow evolving years, and which He expects the 
successive generations of the race to cooperate 
with and carry forward. Not to dwell on the un- 
finished work in the earlier stages of this process, 


216 KEEPING THE FAITH 


think how much was left undone in its final stage, 
introduced by the coming of the Son of God, to 
proclaim the Gospel and erect the Church. 
When He would do this work, the eternal Son 
comes down from heaven, calls around Him a 
few disciples, with whom He deposited the Gos- 
pel, the Sacraments, the few institutional appoint- 
ments of religion, and then He vanished from 
their view. All else He left for man to do. 
Man, as God’s colaborer, was to translate and 
preach the Gospel, and erect the Church, with its 
fixed institutions and ingathering of people from 
every quarter of the world. God would bring no 
man into the obedience of the faith unless he had 
been influenced and helped by some other man. 
He wished man to feel the blessedness and win 
the reward of laboring together with Him in the 
promotion of His cause and kingdom but in this 
He might also have acted very differently. When 
the Saviour went away, He might have left a 
kingdom fully established in every quarter of 
the earth. The Gospel might have been pro- 
claimed by angel lips, the churches might have 
been built, the doctrines might all have been form- 
ulated, the hospitals and asylums might all have 
been erected, the charitable agencies in success- 
ful operation, and all men might have been re- 


KEEPING THE FAITH 217 


duced, at least, to an outward obedience of the 
faith. But none of these things were done, be- 
cause God wanted man to be His agent in their 
accomplishment; to share the honor and win the 
blessing of being a colaborer with God. Now we, 
as a parish, have been engaged for another year 
in accomplishing some part of the tasks which 
the Lord has left for us to do; and in accordance 
with a custom of long standing, we take a re- 
view to-day of the year’s work and bring our- 
selves to an account for our stewardship. 

I. A parish is a body of Christian people who 
are trying by united and coordinated action more 
perfectly to do some part of these unfinished 
works of God and to accomplish it by the use 
of the same means which God Himself employs; 
for if we use any means in Christian work of 
which God does not approve, and which He does 
not use, we then cease to be co-workers with Him. 
If we ask more particularly what are the uncom- 
pleted tasks which the Lord has left for us to do, 
we may broadly answer that they include all that 
helps to supply what is lacking in our personal 
perfection and salvation and also in that of others, 
within and without the parish, whom we have 
it in our power to benefit. To promote this two- 
fold end the parish exists; and to accomplish it 


218 KEEPING THE FAITH 


God Himself has been working throughout the 
years of its history. The question which this an- 
niversary presses home upon us is whether we 
have really been working together with God to 
accomplish this end or have allowed Him to labor 
without our cooperation, and so have been hinder- 
ers rather than helpers in the blessed work. How 
is it in regard to our own personal improvement 
and growth in holiness? We all know what 
means God has been employing to promote this 
end. He has been trying to help us through the 
means of grace instituted in His Churech—the 
word, the worship, the sacraments through which 
the Divine Spirit continually operates, and also 
by the many secret methods of approach to us 
with offers of His grace and help. Have we so 
faithfully cooperated with the Divine Spirit in 
the use of these means that they have contributed 
something to what is lacking to our perfection ? 
There is an ideal of perfection for each one of us 
which God the Father planned, God the Son re- 
vealed, and God the Holy Ghost is helping us to 
reach. Wherein we have failed to attain it is a 
question for each of us to put on bended knee, 
and the failure should incite us to more faithful 
effort in the future. O my friends, much is want- 
ing to the perfection even of the best of us, but 


KEEPING THE FAITH 219 


if, through the improvement of our opportunities, 
a very little advance has been gained and our sal- 
vation is a little nearer than we believed, let us 
thank God and take courage for the future, 
“working out our salvation with fear and trem- 
bling, knowing that it is God who worketh in us 
both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” 

II. But the parish exists also for the benefit 
of those who are without its folds, and the ques- 
tion arises how has it fulfiled its duty to the vari- 
ous classes which surround it? It is situate 
in a university town, and has the opportunity of 
influencing generation after generation of stu- 
dents who come from every quarter of our land to 
get the benefit of residence in its halls of learn- 
ing. A goodly number of them attend the serv- 
ices of the Church, with more or less regularity, 
and surely it is one of the most important of its 
duties to give them welcome, to make them feel, 
while absent from their own parishes, that this is 
a temporary spiritual home; that they have free 
access to the Father’s table, and a share in all the 
privileges and blessings of His house. Our de- 
voted and laborious rector has made the student 
work his special care throughout the year and has 
given all the time he could spare from hig most 
abundant labors to its development; but, of course, 


220 KEEPING THE FAITII 


it is a work which is never finished; it has to be 
done over and over again every year, and we are 
glad to know that he will soon have the help of 
a competent assistant who will share with him 
the privilege and joy of this part of our parish 
duty. But the parish has a farther outlook and 
larger task, and that is to benefit the multitudes 
who are beyond the outmost fringes of its own 
borders, and help to give the many without the 
Church in our diocese and land and overseas the 
blessing of a true knowledge of God and of union 
with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. This it is 
endeavoring to do through its own missionary 
society (and social service board) and through 
the help it renders to the larger societies of the 
diocese and of the General Church. We can say 
without boastfulness, I think, that never in the 
history of our parish has the missionary work 
been carried on with a greater zeal and devotion 
than in the past year. And never have the re- 
sults been more gratifying. But how large the 
unfinished task which is left to be accomplished ! 
The end we have in view is no less than that of 
the whole Church to bring all nations to the 
knowledge and love of God, and to make the king- 
dom of righteousness, peace, and love universal 
in its sway. But how far distant the end appears 


KEEPING THE FAITH’ 221 


to be! We hoped a little while ago that it was 
very near, that when the great war should cease, 
a new world would dawn upon us, and that we 
should have a great brotherhood of nations, bound 
together by ties of mutual fellowship and service, 
and constituting a world-wide kingdom of the 
Lord and His Christ. But instead of this, when 
we look abroad we still see the spectacle of a 
warring Christendom, of nation lifting up the 
sword against nation, and of nations who have 
sheathed the sword quarreling over the spoils of 
victory, and kept asunder by a spirit of selfish 
rivalry and mutual suspicion and distrust. How 
disappointing it all is! But let us not yield to 
discouragement, or doubt about the ultimate at- 
tainment of the end! We are sure that the King- 
dom of love and peace shall at last prevail, be- 
cause God is working for this end and if He be 
for it who can be against it? He has called us 
to be co-workers with Him in accomplishing the 
unfinished task and has put it upon us with His 
help to create the new world and spread through- 
out it the Gospel of His Kingdom, and if we are 
faithful to our task, and use the means which He 
employs, love, patience, self-sacrifice, the subdu- 
ing influence of the spirit of unity and peace, we 
shall no more fail than did the early Christians, 


oD KEEPING THE FAITH 


when they had a similar task put upon them to 
convert the heathen peoples, and unite the diverse 
nations under the banner of the Cross. And so, 
my friends, to our unfinished tasks let us all de- 
vote ourselves with fresh hopefulness and courage, 
trying to accomplish them in God’s own way and 
in more entire dependence on His gracious and 
ready help. We bring and offer to Him, on this 
anniversary, all the results of our parish labors 
for the past year, beseeching Him to pardon all 
the imperfections of our work, all its defects in 
motive or execution, and make it fit through the 
purifying Blood to be added as a contribution to 
His service. Before the throne of the Triune 
God we leave it, and then turn our eager faces 
to the work which still confronts us. In this, 
may I be allowed to say, there should be more 
general cooperation on the part of the congrega- 
tion, and in some one or more of our working 
societies, guilds, or institutions, each of us should 
take a part, and find a congenial field for the ex- 
ertion of our powers. Surely in our missionary, 
educational, or social service activities, in sunday 
school, altar guild, choir, girls’ friendly  so- 
ciety, relief committees, boy scout movements, 
university student organizations, each of us can 
find something to do, adapted to his special gifts 


KEEPING THE FAITH 223 


and tastes; and to that each should yield himself 
or herself as a willing and facile instrument of 
the Divine Spirit in the accomplishing of the 
works of grace. We may be sure that God has 
a special task for each of us to finish before the 
night shuts down, and we can work no more; let 
us ask, what is it Lord? and then set ourselves 
about the fulfilling of His will. We work hap- 
pily and successfully only when we work con- 
sciously with God, and for His sake, and so let 
us all seek for a closer union with Him, and a 
spirit of fuller consecration to His service. The 
year we are facing seems to have larger possibil- 
ities of growth for the parish, and for the General 
Church than any in the past, because of move- 
ments not only of parochial but of nation-wide 
extent, and we shall need larger measures of 
grace to enable us to meet our greater responsibil- 
ities, and fulfill our larger tasks. 

May God grant us grace sufficient to our need 
and make the fruits of labor commensurate with 
the abundance of His grace! May He help us 
to adopt as our own the Blessed Saviour’s words 
—‘“it is my meat to do the will of God and to 
finish His work,”—and thus to find in persever- 
ing Christian labor a satisfying of our souls’ de- 
sires, a real food for our spiritual cravings, and 


924 KEEPING THE FAITH 


a meat which nourishes our immortal life; and 
at last may He enable us also to say with Christ, 
“I have finished the work Thou gavest me to do,” 
and with Him and all the blessed ones who have 
labored with us to enter into the eternal rest 
and reward. 


SERMON XxX 


SERMON PREACHED AFTER THE WRECK OF 
THE TITANIC * 


Be still, then, and know that I am God.—Psalm 
46:10. 


N this psalm which was composed when a 
36 great national danger was impending over 

the Jewish; people, there is an exhortation 
to quiet and unquestioning confidence in God as 
the Supreme Disposer of all human events. T'wo 
erounds are presented by the writer as the bases 
on which such confidence should rest: First, the 
universality of God’s dominion as the Almighty 
Ruler of the world; second, the specialty of His 
providential care arising from a covenant rela- 
tion with His people. The two names of God 
which the Psalmist uses set forth the twofold 
eround for confidence. “The Lord of Hosts is 
with us:” here we have the title of the great Sov- 


*Preached on the Sunday after the wreck of the 


“Titanic.” 
225 


226 KEEPING THE FAITH 


ereign of the universe. “The God of Jacob is 
our refuge:” here the Sovereign is presented as 
the God of the family, as well as of the host, and 
on this double ground of His general and special 
providential care, the Hebrews are exhorted to 
rest in stillness and composure. Great may be 
the convulsions of the outward world—the earth 
may be removed, and the hills may be carried into 
the midst of the sea; the waters thereof may rage 
and swell, and the mountains may shake at the 
tempest of the same, yet there is a river the streams 
whereof shall make glad the city of God—and 
this is the river of God’s Presence which spreads 
a serene and tranquil influence in the hearts of 
His people; and though billows rave, and storm 
clouds roll, sheds forth within a sense of holy 
calm. 

In the presence of the great disaster which has 
so filled our thoughts and stirred our sympathies 
throughout the week—a disaster unparalleled in 
magnitude, unequalled in heart-rendering expe- 
rience by any recent tragedy of the sea: a disaster 
which has carried mourning into every part of 
our wide land, and started many a question before 
which shocked intelligence is dumb, and bewild- 
ered heart is blindly groping for the light, what 
can we do but fall back on the same grounds of 


KEEPING THE FAITH 927 


quietness and confidence that of old the Psalmist 
brought to view and listen to the voice which 
rises above the swellings of the water floods and 
says, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Still 
ness: a keeping silence before God; an attitude of 
calm submission to His will, and of attent listen- 
ing for His voice; the hush of soul that comes over 
us when we know that the Lord is near and may 
have a message to deliver—that preeminently 
is the duty of the hour. For, my dear people, 
God has indeed come near to us in this sad event. 
He is speaking to us with a voice, and in a lan- 
enage which He does not often use, and to which, 
on that account, we ought to give more earnest 
heed. He is always near, indeed, always speak- 
ing in His many-voiced word, but we are often un- 
conscious of Him; He is not in all our thoughts, 
and we need to be awaked from our insensibility, 
startled into a recognition of His Presence and 
of our absolute dependence on Him. That is the 
mission of such awful calamities. They arouse 
us from our guilty stupor. They cause the scales 
to drop from our eyes. They undraw for us the 
curtains of eternity, and show that, with one 
more step, we shall be in another world. They 
prove how powerless we often are when in the 
erip of forces over which we thought we had con- 


228 KEEPING THE FAITH 


trol, and they bid us to turn to God for help. Do 
you think there was a single soul on the ill-fated 
ship, which struck the iceberg, who, when it be- 
came evident that she must sink, that all hold on 
life was gone, and in a minute more all must go 
down to the bottom of the sea, do you think there 
was a single one who did not then lift up his 
heart to God? Ah, my friends, in such moments 
the sophistries of intellect, which sometimes keep 
us from prayer, are scattered to the winds, and 
the spirit instinctively turns to the God of its 
life for support and safety. Had there been time 
for the offering of the Church’s prayer for use “in 
ships in storms at sea,’’ there would have been 
none who could not say, “We, thy creatures, do in 
this our great distress, ery unto Thee for help. 
Save, Lord, or else we perish. We confess, when 
we have been safe and seen all things quiet about 
us, we have forgotten Thee our God and refused 
to harken to the still voice of Thy word, and to 
obey Thy commandments; but now we see how 
terrible Thou art, in all Thy works of wonder, the 
great God to be feared above all, and therefore 
we adore Thy Divine Majesty, acknowledging 
Thy power and imploring Thy goodness. Help, 
Lord, and save us for Thy mercies’ sake.” 

But while we say that calamities thus bring us 


KEEPING THE FAITH 229 


to an acknowledgment of God, we must not com- 
mit the error of supposing that He ever exerts 
His active power in bringing them to pass, but 
believe only that when they do occur, He uses 
them to reveal Himself and to promote the spirit- 
ual benefit of men. We must not hold Him di- 
rectly responsible for them. He is not their im- 
mediate and efficient cause. They are usually 
due to some neglect or violation on our part of 
the wise and good laws by which God carries on 
the order of the world, and are caused by human 
ignorance, carelessness or presumption. In the 
vast majority of cases man is the responsible 
agent, and God’s connection with them is simply 
through the framing of the natural laws, which 
man breaks or ignores, and which always then 
exact their penalties. For wise reasons these 
laws are made uniform in their operation, and 
when man disobeys them and disastrous conse- 
quences ensue, all we can say is that God refuses 
to suspend their action, but permits them to oper- 
ate in the fixed manner which, for the good of the 
whole system, He has ordained. There is a sense 
indeed in which all calamitous events are included 
in the vast scheme of God’s providential govern- 
ment, for nothing can occur in a dependent uni- 
verse outside of His foreknowledge, and negative 


230 KEEPING THE FAITH 


consent, but His Controlling Hand is on the re- 
sults of the calamities rather than on the free 
secondary agencies by which they are brought 
about. When a great disaster befalls a commun- 
ity or a home, at once God tries to turn the evil 
into good. Infinite wisdom, love and power are 
at once bestirred to convert the affliction into 
blessing, and make it inure to the spiritual benefit 
of all who are affected by it. And must we not 
believe that in the beneficent designs of Provi- 
dence the victims of such calamities are included 
as well as those who survive their deadly shock? 
Must not the good providence of God be impar- 
tial in its operation? In the sinking of a vessel 
at sea, a few may be saved in the lifeboats, while 
the majority of the passengers and crew may go 
down with the lost ship; shall we say that God 
was mindful of the few who were rescued, and 
forgot the hundreds who went down with the 
broken wreck? That is a conception of the 
universal Father that we cannot for a moment 
entertain. If a sparrow falls not to the ground 
without His notice, then surely His intelligent 
creatures, who are of more value than many spar- 
rows, cannot fall away from His observant eye, 
or get beyond the reach of His providential rule 
and care. ‘They may be in ocean’s depths, over 


KEEPING THE FAITH 931 


them the blue waters may roll, and the moaning 
winds and sighing waves may unite to sing their 
requiem, but they are still in the hollow of God’s 
hands, safe in His keeping, and He still has “care 
for His elect.” If they loved God, then the evil 
which has befallen them has been turned into 
ereater good, and the form of death, which has 
such terrors for us, was after all but a momentary 
transition to a better world where they are with 
Christ, all earth’s troubles and storms and shocks 
being overpast, and where “there is no more sea.” 
Among them there was many a brave, heroic man 
and woman who sacrificed life in order that others 
might be saved, imitating thus in a far-off way 
the “Good Shepherd” of us all, and the sacrifice 
may make the life far more fruitful than other- 
wise it ever could have been. Does not such a 
thought help to illumine a little the dark cloud 
of mystery in which the terrible event is wrapped, 
and to all questionings, and murmurings arising 
out of it enable us to obey the bidding, “Be still 
and know that I am God?” 

TI. But it is easier to interpret its meaning 
for those who survived it, and to read its salutary 
lessons for all the living. Many are the voices 
of warning and instruction which come out of the 
dire event. I can only briefly mention two or 


232 KEEPING THE FAITH 


three, and leave them with the reflecting mind to 
ponder and apply. 

(1) Ought we not, my friends, to consider it, 
first, as a rebuke to human pride? I mean pride 
in achievement, in the mighty strides of progress 
we have made in our modern world. I yield to 
no one in grateful appreciation of all that our 
wondrous age has been permitted to accomplish, 
but ought we not to ask whether we have not ban- 
ished God too much from our thoughts, and prac- 
tically treated the progress as but a reward of 
human exertion, or a triumph of human power? 
Have we not overvalued the part which human 
intellect, genius, perseverance have had in the 
advancing process, and had no due sense of de- 
pendency on the God Who is behind the intellect, 
the genius, and Who lights and sustains their fires 
by the sparks of His own intelligence?, We may 
have had a just pride in the noble ship that met 
with such a dismal and untimely end, and in the 
splendid skill, science and mechanic art that con- 
spired together to produce it, but was there not 
something of self-confidence and self-sufficiency in 
our contention that it was perfectly safe, it could 
outride any ocean storm and come unharmed 
through any danger to which it might be exposed ? 
It was not permitted even once to cross the sea. 


KEEPING THE FAITH oe 


Our pride has been humbled, and we have learned 
that it will not do to put our confidence in ships 
nor in anything that represents the boastful prog- 
ress of the age but in the God Who is behind it all 
and Whose heart of love and hand of power are 
our only reliance for safety, support and contin- 
uance in being. Let the wondrous march of prog- 
ress still go on, but in it let us be careful “lest 
we forget.” 

(2) Again, have we not had a rebuke to our 
modern haste? How much of unseemly quick- 
ness in motion or action everywhere prevails! 
There is haste in travel at the expense of safety, 
haste in construction at the sacrifice of durability 
and strength, haste in money making at the cost 
of principle and our neighbors’ good. There is a 
general spirit of unrest, hurry, impatient speed 
which turns life into a fever, seeks for continual 
change, and banishes calmness and collectedness 
of soul; and is not this one of the things which 
the voice of God, in the tragedy of woe, reproves ? 
It is written, “he that believeth shall not make 
haste,” and out of all the confusion and distrac- 
tion of our life in the world there comes the re- 
minder to “Be still and know that I am God.” 

(3) The sad event is also a rebuke of a too 
great absorption in temporal and material things, 


934 KEEPING THE FAITH 


and a neglect of the eternal and spiritual things. 
We may be sure that at the supreme moment 
when our doomed fellow-beings faced eternity 
and knew that after a single awful plunge they 
would be there, the relative importance of these 
things was greatly changed. The long ages ap- 
peared in vivid contrast with life’s fleeting span: 
the things that remain with those that flee away. 
Millions of gold were seen to be of less value than 
a single act of charity, the proudest achievements 
of intellect of less account than a single throb 
of love, or act of faith in God. Oh, my friends, 
let us listen to this voice of the dread event as we 
engage in the necessary business of the world— 
in which we ought to take the deepest interest, 
for it is by the right use of time that we are to 
win eternity—but in all our worldly work let us 
give ear to the counsel which comes to us from 
the watery graves, “Set your affection on the 
things above, not on the things on the earth, for 
ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in 
God.” 

But we cannot dwell longer on our theme. 
Long will the wreck of the noble ship be remem- 
bered, and it will be the aim of Providence deeply 
to impress the lessons it suggests on the public 
mind, and turn it thus into a means of lasting 


KEEPING THE FAITH 235 


benefit. There is an ancient and widely spread 
legend that in the old days there was a great 
island in the heart of the Atlantic, now sunken 
for ever beneath the waves: the land that Plato 
called Atlantis and located in the far west. The 
sailors sometimes tell the tale how in calm sum- 
mer evenings they can hear far down in the 
ocean’s depth the bells of the old churches in the 
lost Atlantis still ringing and sending out of the 
sea, and from among the dead, a solemn message 
to the living. As in future years the travellers 
by sea shall approach the spot where the noble 
ship went down, will not they also hear a message 
from the sunken bells, speaking to the silent soul 
and saying, “Pride goeth before destruction. 
Safety is of the Lord. It is better to trust in 
the Lord than to put confidence in man. Be still 
and know that I am God.” 


SERMON XXI 
SERMON PREACHED AFTER ARMISTICE DAY 


Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto 
you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. 
Let not your heart be troubled neither let it be 
afraid.—St. John 14: 27. 


7 te are summoned once more by the Proc- 
lamation of our President and the eall 

~~ of the Church to render solemn praise 
and thanksgiving to Almighty God for the many 
mercies and blessings of another year: and 
chief among the causes of gratitude and rejoic- 
ing the Proclamation specifies peace. Our 
thanks have already been offered in private and 
in parochial assembly for this unspeakable 
blessing, but to-day our tribute is a national 
one. The whole body politic in its entity and 
unity is bending, at least representatively, be- 
fore the throne of the Divine Majesty, and is ery- 
ing Holy, Holy, Holy. Two weeks ago we had a 


kind of rehearsal of this occasion. When after 
236 


KEEPING THE FAITH 237 
several days of anxious waiting the news was 
flashed upon the wires that the armistice had been 
signed, that the war was ended, the long agony of 
trench, battle-field, and hospital was over; when 
it was understood that our gallant armies had won 
a great and decisive victory for the noble cause for 
which through four weary years they had fought 
and bled and died with such heroic courage, and 
unfaltering faith, the announcement sent a thrill 
of rapturous joy throughout our land, and indeed 
through every quarter of the suffering world. 
People everywhere gave themselves up in complete 
abandon to impromptu, irrational, as well as ra- 
tional methods of expressing joy. I distinctly re- 
member the transport of public joy which was 
elicited by the ending of our Civil War more than 
half a century ago, but this has far exceeded that 
in breadth and intensity of feeling as the extent 
and issues of the world-wide struggle were greater. 
But we must all have been made aware that 
soon after this first outburst of exultant jubi- 
lation a feeling, I will not say of depression, 
but of thoughtful soberness took possession of 
the public mind. This was something more 
than the mere natural reaction which follows 
a time of great excitement and spent emotion, it 
had also a deeper cause rooted in the moral ele- 


938 KEEPING THE FAITH 


ments of our being. We began to reflect that vic- 
tory carried with it tremendous responsibilities 
which we were now obliged to face. Victory was 
not peace, it only prepared the way for it, and it 
was now our task to see that it should yield its 
peaceable fruits in our own dear land and among 
the other nations of mankind. All through the 
years of the war we had been praying for a new 
world; it was now our business to construct it. 
The greatness of the task was staggering. It de- 
manded something more than the huzzas and wav- 
ing banners of an excited crowd, and could only be 
met by calm consideration, far-sighted wisdom, 
balanced judgment, unselfish purpose, earnest and 
prayerful endeavor. We cannot wonder that when 
the day of excitement passed away and the calm 
stars of God came out, many radiant faces which 
had been turned to the brightness of the new age 
were, I will not say sicklied, but shadowed “with 
the pale cast of thought,” as we stood hesitant on 
its borders and gazed into the unknown future. 
But, my friends, we ought not to give way to the 
feeling of apprehension or distrust but address 
ourselves with cheerfulness and confidence to the 
work before us. Down through the ages there 
comes an inspiring voice which says, “Let not your 


KEEPING THE FAITH 939 


heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Peace 
I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.” 
That Peace is for the regeneration of the world 
and of its increase there can be no end. The dis- 
ciples to whom it was first committed had the same 
task as that which is laid on us; they had also to 
create a new world, and they had to face greater 
difficulties than those by which we are confronted, 
but they went forward in the strength of Christ 
to preach the evangel of peace, to establish His 
reign in the hearts and lives of men, and soon be- 
fore its victorious march the tyrannies, oppres- 
sions, superstitions of the old world began to 
crumble, and the greater light, liberty, and purity 
of the new age began to appear. For all that dis- 
tinguishes our Christian civilization from the 
heathen which it superseded, for all that constitutes 
the real progress and true betterment of mankind, 
we are indebted to the efforts of those simple- 
hearted men who shrank not from their task but 
went forth to conquer the world for Christ with no 
weapon in their hands but the sword of the spirit 
and with feet shod only with the sandals of 
peace. Now, my dear friends, the legacy of 
Christ has descended to us and all of Christ’s fol- 
lowers, as its trustees, and I would that on this 


940 KEEPING THE FAITH 


Thanksgiving Day we might all be made to feel 
that we are possessors and are wanted to be dis- 
pensers of the peace which the world so greatly 
needs, the only peace that can satisfy its deepest 
yearnings, that can quiet its disturbances and dis- 
sensions, and permanently secure the fruits of the 
victory for which our thanks are ascending to our 
God. How shall we describe this peace? What 
are its characteristics? We speak of it in general 
as a Christian peace, and this indeed it is, and as 
such it must have certain marks which differentiate 
it from the world’s peace—“not as the world giv- 
eth, give I unto you;” and of these marks, we may 
mention two or three. (1) One of these is 
righteousness. The peace we are wanted to ef- 
fect is one, the terms of which are ethically good 
and right, and in accord with the high standards 
of the moral law as this is written in our hearts 
and minds, and revealed to us as the unchanging 
will of God. One of the fallacies by which the 
eruelties of the war were justified was that might 
makes right, and that when a stronger nation 
for its own advantage crushes a weaker one it 
acts on the instinct of self-preservation, which 
is the first law of nature and cannot therefore 
be in the wrong. But this is one of the devil’s 
lies and it denies that there is any supreme rule 


KEEPING THE FAITH 241 


of right for nations, as well as individuals, the 
violation of which must necessarily bring guilt 
and blame. If the conditions of the situation 
were reversed and the weaker nation had de- 
spoiled the stronger, the fallen adversary would 
be the first to see the fallacy in the reasoning, and 
to say that a deceived heart had turned his enemy 
aside. The peace we should long for and pray for, 
and which thanks be to God seems now to be 
within our grasp, is one that is impartially right, 
and upright, and that rests on foundations which 
are immutable and divine. No peace based on 
mere expediency or weak compromise with prin- 
ciple, no peace which is a mere balance of power or 
state of equilibrium produced by poising the selfish 
interest of one nation against the selfish interest 
of another, can now satisfy the conscience of man- 
kind, nor can it long endure. That has been the 
policy of Europe ever since the battle of Waterloo, 
and the experiment has been an utter failure. 
Now let the heart of the nations be set on right- 
eousness, and let them prove the truth of the 
prophet’s words, “The work of righteousness shall 
be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness 
and assurance for ever.” (2) Another character- 
istic of the Christian peace is freedom: which is 
the inherent right of an individual to be guided 


249 KEEPING THE FAITH 


by his own reason and conscience in ordering his 
life and making the most of its opportunities. It 
is, of course, an ordered freedom and is so limited 
that it shall not impair the like freedom of others. 
As applied to a mation it means freedom from the 
dictation of arbitrary authority, whether autocratic 
or oligarchic, and it logically leads to a government 
by the people, such as we and other democracies 
enjoy. That the spread of such freedom through- 
out the world is likely to be one of the happy con- 
sequences of our war is a cause of devout thanks- 
giving in every heart to-day, and earnestly should 
we pray that it may everywhere be safeguarded by 
Christian principle and inspired by the Spirit of 
the Lord, for where He is, there is liberty indeed. 
(3) Another mark of the peace is justice: which is 
practical conformity to the laws and principles of 
right dealing, and the rendering to every one of 
that which is his due. In the final settlement of 
the accounts of the war, all just rights should be 
secured to the weaker nations, and there should be 
stern requitals of desert required of the stronger 
ones which so wantonly provoked and cruelly pros- 
ecuted the awfully destructive and desolating war. 
But justice is not hatred or revenge, and in its 
punishment of crime it aims at the reformation 


KEEPING THE FAITH 943 


of the offender rather than his destruction; and in 
our dealing with the arch offender in the war we 
should try to bring him to repentance (no sign of 
which as yet appears) and to show the fruit of it 
by the endeavor to make reparation for the awful 
wreck and ruin wrought in the fairest portions of 
the world—the floods of misery which have over- 
whelmed millions of innocent sufferers, the tor- 
rents of blood which have reddened the soil of 
many lands and have indeed the multitudinous seas 
incarnadined. Pray for the enemy that he may be 
brought to a true repentance, and that humbled 
and purified he may yet be fitted for a place among 
the other nations of the world. (4) But there is 
another mark of the peace more distinctly Chris- 
tian than those we have mentioned, and this is that 
it is based on a recognition of the new brotherhood 
of man which it was the object of our Lord’s In- 
carnation to effect, and which is but the obverse of 
the revelation of the Fatherhood of God. Brother- 
hood in Christ, my dear friends, is the only sure 
foundation on which to build a world’s peace. 
The endeavors to secure it by treaty, by pact, by 
commercial intercourse, by international league 
and law must all fail unless behind them all is the 
spirit of brotherhood and love. Justice apart 


244 KEEPING THE FAITH 


from love can never make an enduring peace for 
justice deals only with the question of rights, de- 
serts, and dues, and the equal adjustment of rival 
claims. Its symbol is the blindfolded woman with 
the evenly balanved scales in her hands. But love 
goes further, and is a principle of sacrifice and 
service. Its symbol is a thorn-crowned Head, a 
pierced Hand, and a bleeding Heart. It asks not, 
how much can I justly claim from others but how 
much can I surrender to them for their own wel- 
fare and the common good? Is it not a cause of 
profoundest gratitude that a new spirit of brother- 
hood is beginning to pervade the nations, and that 
war however justifiable at times is yet asin against 
brotherhood, and that common measures should be 
taken to prevent a recurrence of the fratricidal 
strife? May God give good success to any efforts 
made to effect this end, and incline our hearts to 
aid them by our influence and fervent prayers! 
Surely it is our responsibility as one of the older 
and more stable democracies to set an example to 
the world of ordered freedom, enduring union, 
and self-sacrificing devotion to the good of all man- 
kind. What a mission for our dear native land, 
how proud and happy we should be that we may 
have a little part in its fulfillment! For myself 
I thank God to-day from the bottom of my heart 


KEEPING THE FAITH 245 


that I may call myself an American citizen, and I 
doubt not that this sentiment is echoed back from 
the breasts of many who hear me. 


“OQ beautiful for patriot’s dream 
That sees beyond the years 
Thine alabaster cities gleam 
Undimmed by human tears! 
America! America! 
God shed His grace on thee, 
And crown Thy good with brotherhood 
From sea to shining sea.” 


And so, my dear friends and fellow-citizens, let us 
go to our task of reconstruction and of reaping the 
fruits of victory with hopefulness and courage. 
Our prayers for the world’s peace are surely in ac- 
cord with the mind and will of God and they are 
reinforced by the prayers of the Divine Interces- 
sor, and may I not say the prayers of millions of 
patriots who have died to procure the peace. Our 
active endeavors to promote the peace are also di- 
rectly in the line of the workings of Divine Prov- 
idence and the manifest tendency of the ages. 
We may be sure that a peace founded on brother- 
hood, national and international, will at last pre- 
vail, and over all the earth its blessed banner fling. 
But, my friends, we must give God time. We are 


246 KEEPING THE FAITH 


so apt to be impatient of the scale on which He 
works; we want to reduce it to the limits of our 
human faculties and our brief earthly life. God 
inhabits eternity and His purposes may require 
long ages for their unfolding. All history 
preaches patience. ‘The only way in which we can 
hasten God in His peace-making work is by our- 
selves becoming better instruments through whom 
He will carry it on. We must be filled with the 
spirit of His peace, the peace of God which passes 
understanding, and subdues all our powers and fac- 
ulties to its tranquil rule. We must have passed 
from the region of rebellion, misrule, and unrest 
into the Kingdom of God’s dear Son with its or- 
dered freedom, its thirst for righteousness, its 
sweet subjection to God’s all holy and all loving 
will, and from its central seat in our own hearts 
we must shed forth the peace on all around. We 
are looking out on a world to-day which is still 
full of tumult and agitation. There is only one 
force that can quiet the waves of unrest, and that 
is the peace of God through Jesus Christ His Son; 
even as there is only one that quiets the tumults 
and confusions of the raging ocean, the force pro- 
ceeding from the gentle silver moon which draws 
the tidal wave into which melt all the contrary 
currents and threatening billows as it rolls its way 


KEEPING THE FAITH 947 


around the earth, May God make us all to be 
centres of the harmonizing force, and bless all the 
efforts which shall be made, especially by the 
women of the Church in the coming Advent to 
make its influence felt in home and heart, to com- 
pose all the agitations on life’s troubled sea, 
Mingled with our songs of thanksgiving to-day, as 
we cannot but reflect, are the sighs of many 
saddened hearts and homes elicited by the memory 
of dear ones who have lost their lives on the field 
of battle; but may we not give thanks, even 
through our tears, for the bravery and eagerness 
with which they made their sacrifice, and for the 
glory which the sacrifice will shed on family 
escutcheon and the history of our native land ? 
How much we owe to them! If they and others 
had not laid down their lives there would have 
been no victory to celebrate to-day. We fling 
wreaths of remembrance on the beloved dead and 
pray God evermore to bless, preserve, and keep 
them. May they not be joining us in the thanks- 
eivings of this national festival? In the offering 
of the nation may there not be gathered not only 
the tributes ascending from ten thousand earthly 
altars, but also from the vast multitudes around 
the heavenly throne whose voices are like the 
sound of many waters, beating in waves of choral 


948 KEEPING THE FAITH 


symphony upon the eternal shore? Lift up the 
heart and join in the triumph song: “Blessing 
and glory and wisdom, and thanksgiving and 
honor and power and might be unto our God for 
ever and ever. Amen and Amen!” 

“Thine is the greatness and the glory, the vic- 
tory and the majesty. Thine is the Kingdom, O 
Lord, and Thou art exalted as Head above all.” 


SERMON XXII 
THE SURE GROUND OF TRUST FOR THE FUTURE 


That your faith and hope might be in God.— 
I St. Peter 1: 21. 


SAH times emphasize the duty of cultivat- 
ing a cheerful and sanguine Christian 

faith. So many things have recently hap- 
pened to disappoint and disconcert our minds, so 
many dreams have been broken, so many expecta- 
tions have come to naught that we cannot won- 
der that the average faith of even Christian folk 
should have lost something of its buoyancy and 
brightness, and that they should share in some 
degree the feeling of depression which is so often 
felt by those with whom they mingle. Christian 
faith ought always to be sober, indeed; it should 
be calm, free from extravagant anticipation and 
boastful prediction, but it should nevertheless be 
strong, sure of its ground, anchored on certainties, 
and confident that its visions of the future good 


shall be fulfiled. St. Peter, in the Epistle from 
249 


250 KEEPING THE FAITH 


which the text is taken, is trying to beget in his 
fellow Christians such a faith; and I could wish, 
my dear friends, that, following in his lead, I 
might say a few words that might be helpful to 
us, in our endeavor to attain it. But I must 
speak in weakness and you will have need of pa- 
tience if owing to feebleness of utterance I should 
only partially succeed in giving audible expres- 
sion to my thought. The general thought which I 
would like to press home is that the depression to 
which I have referred is chiefly due to our failure 
to connect our faith with the only object which 
ean hold it steady through all varieties of experi- 
ence, and yield in all a satisfactory fruition of re- 
sults. Instead of this it is to be feared that we 
have been trusting too much to things which are 
weak, inefficient, unable to lay hold of the powers 
of the world to come, and the high moral and spir- 
itual ends on which our hearts should be set. 
Such a theme is quite in harmony with the general 
aim and drift of St. Peter’s discourse, for in the 
chapter from which the text is taken he speaks 
of those whom he addresses as being in heaviness 
through manifold temptations, and as enduring 
a testing of their faith like that of gold tried by 
fire. And he is most anxious that they should 
stand the test and not be moved by discourage- 


KEEPING THE FAITH 951 


ment to let go their hold on Christianity, and 
substitute for it some of the heathen philosophies 
rife in their day. His words are full of earnest 
exhortation and appeal, which culminate in the 
wish expressed in the text—“that your faith and 
hope might be in God.” 

I. I fear we shall find evidence of its being 
placed elsewhere if we look briefly at two or three 
spheres of our life and action in which the feeling 
of depression most visibly appears. Look first 
at the nation, the state, not only our own dear 
native land, but also other countries dwelt in 
by other ethnic families of mankind. How dif- 
ferent the condition of them all from what we 
hoped it would be at the close of our late memo- 
rable war! We dared then to entertain the belief 
and expectation that victory for our arms would 
mean the inauguration of a new era in the his- 
tory of the world and introduce the long-expected 
reign of righteousness, liberty, brotherhood, and 
peace. We ventured to hope that the nations 
would forget their differences, sheathe their 
swords, sink their selfish rivalries, and unite in 
a common endeavor through sacrifice and service 
to secure the welfare and happiness of all. Is 
this the case? Has the common benefit been at- 
tained? Loud are the lamentations on every side 


952 KEEPING THE FAITH 


that it has not. The nations, at least some of 
them, are still adopting their own selfish policies 
and pursuing their own selfish ends. We seem 
to be as far from the realization of the common 
brotherhood of'men as ever. What is the matter ? 
Why have we been so disappointed of our hope? 
Is it not because our hope and faith have not been 
firmly fixed on Jesus Christ, and that we have 
been trusting to other things than His truth and 
grace for the realization of the blessed end? 
Look deeply into the public mind and heart, un- 
cover the secret motives and desires of our com- 
mon human nature, and you will find that almost 
unconsciously we have been trusting to legisla- 
tion, wise statesmanship, the pacific effect of 
trade and commerce, the natural tendency of 
things to get better through social or natural evo- 
lution—all good and useful in their proper place, 
but none of them to be relied on as substitutes 
for the principles and practice of the religion of 
our Holy Lord. O my friends, let us continue 
to have faith in the future of our beloved land, 
and the part which Providence has assigned to 
it in the establishment of the universal reign of 
brotherhood and love. We would be disloyal 
Christians as well as citizens, if we should lose 
our faith in this and the glad-heartedness which 


KEEPING THE FAITH 253 


it is fitted to create; but let us be careful about 
the basis of our trust, and see that our faith and 
hope are resting in our God. 

II. Look again at the Church, another sphere 
in which our human thought and action move, and 
in which our highest hopes are often centred. 
We commonly think of the Church as a divine 
institution, and as the scene of certain divine 
operations which are for the health, the healing, 
the salvation of our souls. But the Church has a 
human as well as a divine side, and this must 
be taken into account in any judgment we may 
form of it. In its earthly administration it is 
committed into the hands of weak and fallible 
men who are liable to errors in judgment, mis- 
takes in practice which bring suspicion upon it, 
and dim the brightness of its divine original. 
Not to mention the trying times which the Church 
at large, in its past history, has experienced, we 
need look no further than to the little portion 
of it to which we belong to find recent instances 
of failure and maladministration even in its 
trusted officials both lay and clerical, and we can 
scarcely take up a newspaper without finding 
sensational reports of the misdoings written to 
thrill the reader or to gratify vulgar curiosity. 
Many of the reports are founded on suspicion 


254 KEEPING THE FAITH 


rather than fact, and the discerning readers are 
willing to cover the accused with the mantle of 
charity until the truth respecting the charges 
shall be known. But what shall we say about the 
effect of it all upon the estimate of the Church 
in the public mind? Is its faith in the Church 
to be weakened by it all and are we to regard 
it as no more worthy of our confidence and re- 
gard? That can never happen if our faith in it is 
placed on its true foundation—and what is this? 
On what, my dear people, is your faith in the 
Church as the teacher and guide of yourselves 
and your children, as the purveyor to you of the 
things that pertain to eternal life and godliness 
—on what is this reposing? Is it resting on the 
fact that it has so many pious people enrolled 
among its members, or that it has many learned 
and saintly men among its rulers governing in 
parish and diocese throughout the land? Then 
your faith may be wrecked. Even an apostle 
could deny his Lord, and the whole apostolic band 
could forsake Him in the hour of trial. Our 
confidence in the Church rests on the fact that 
Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son of God, is its chief 
member and minister, that the Church is His 
Body, that He is behind and within all its minis- 
trations, and is taking care that the gates of hell 


KEEPING THE FAITH 955 


shall not prevail against it. Give the Church 
your whole-hearted confidence, your enthusiastic 
loyalty and support, but be sure that your faith 
and hope shall be in God. 

III. But let us narrow our view and think 
more particularly of ourselves. JI am sure that 
the cause of depressed feeling with many of us 1s 
a personal one. It is created by the failures, the 
lapses, the disappointments we have experienced 
in our own personal religious life. Perhaps we 
have set an ideal of character and conduct before 
us which we hoped to reach, and have made more 
or less effort to attain, but we have been made 
painfully conscious of ill success of our endeav- 
ors, and this has robbed our life experience of its 
brightness, and almost thrown us out of heart for 
future effort. The disheartenment may not have 
been due to a single fall but to a number of lapses 
and collapses in our course; to a more or less fre- 
quent yielding to the sins of infirmity to which 
our natural disposition may have made us prone, 
and this has produced an oft-recurring disappoint- 
ment which has been very wearing to the mind, 
and made us put the question, is it worth while 
to try again? But it would scarcely have had 
this effect, if we had learned the lesson which 
God is ever trying to teach us of our own weak- 


256 KEEPING THE FAITH 


ness and frailty, and of the necessity of looking 
away from ourselves to Him for strength to con- 
quer in our battles with temptation. Perhaps 
the greatest secret of our failures is the self- 
trust which is born of pride and which in the 
lives of the saints is shown to be a sure prelude 
of a soul-humbling fall. We are only safe when 
in a spirit of profound humility we renounce all 
self-reliance and turn to Christ and say, “My 
faith and hope are in Thee alone. I cannot con- 
quer by myself. Thou must conquer for me and 
in me if I am ever to win the day;” and it is 
wonderful how such humility connects itself with 
that elasticity of soul which enables it to rise up 
from its depressions and start forward with fresh 
zeal and joyousness on its heavenward way. 

Let us note before closing that we may find 
in our theme a corrective of the loose opinion 
which is gaining headway in our time that the 
object to which faith may attach itself is a mat- 
ter of little importance in respect to the results 
which it may achieve. Faith is treated as a mere 
psychological attitude, and faith in one thing 
seems to work as well as faith in another. Sick 
people are cured by faith in saints’ relics, fetishes, 
metaphysical theories, quack treatments, as well 
as by faith in a supernatural power. The ob- 


KEEPING THE FAITH 257 


ject is of little account so long as the belief itself 
is strong and masterful. But let us remark, my 
friends, that the faith of the inferior kind can 
only work its wonders on the lower plane of our 
physical life. It accomplishes little or nothing 
in the higher sphere of our moral and spiritual 
life. It cannot deliver us from sin, bring us 
pardon, peace, and make us holy. It cannot give 
us strength to overcome the world or uphold us 
in the hour of death. Let us be sure then, my 
friends, that our faith is fixed and stayed immov- 
ably on God. This is not only of the utmost im- 
portance to ourselves but to others whom we may 
want to benefit. A vital, sanguine faith is one of 
the necessary conditions of God’s bestowal of His 
gifts as well as of our appropriation of them and 
without it we cannot expect Him to exert His 
power in behalf of those for whom we may inter- 
cede. Unbelief practically disables Him, handi- 
caps Him in His operation, just as His Beloved 
Son when in the world could do no mighty works 
for His Gallilean friends because of their lack of 
faith. But faith puts us in proper sympathetic 
relation to Him, makes us “en rapport” with 
Him, and is able to draw down showers of bless- 
ing from the skies. Why should we need argu- 
ment or persuasion to induce us to put our trust 


258 KEEPING THE FAITH 


in Him! How wonderful the privelege, how in- 
effable the favor, that we poor, fleeting, incon- 
stant creatures of a day should be able to rest 
our life and being on the Great Unchanging Om- 
nipotent Being on Whom the whole universe re- 
poses, Who is behind and within all its mighty 
forces, the secret source of all its life and move- 
ment, and Who would remain should all His crea- 
tures be swept away like leaves before the autumn 
winds! This great Unchanging One is our 
Father. He loves us, His children, with a deep 
Fatherly affection, and has given us convincing 
proof of it in that He gave His Son to die for 
our salvation. He wants to do us good and is 
more willing to send us blessings than we are to 
ask for them. He wants to bless our native land; 
He wants to bless the Church; He wants to bless 
each one of us by granting us the forgiveness of 
our sins, help to lead a holy life, and to ascend 
with Him to the better life in store for those who 
love Him. 

Oh, trust in Him all ye people! Pour out your 
hearts before Him, for God is our hope. 

Deep in our hearts is a sense of dissatisfaction 
with all earthly things. Mighty yearnings are 
implanted in them which nothing less than the 
infinite and eternal things can fully still, and 


KEEPING THE FAITH 959 


until we rest in them we are doomed to move 
in a world not realized, with the types and 
shadows of the satisfying things all around us, 
but the things themselves left only to our dreams. 
Dream on, O heart of hearts, of a love, a beauty, 
a purity, a perfection yet to be. It shall be yours 
if your faith and hope are only in thy God! 


SERMON XXIII 
THE CATHEDRAL SYSTEM * 


For as we have many members in one body and 
all members have not the same office: so we being 
many are one body m Christ, and every one mem- 
bers of one another.—Romans 12: 4-5. 


HE Church is often compared to the human 
) body with its various members in subjec- 
tion to the head, and in union with each 
other, and all combining harmoniously together to 
perform its functions, and fulfill its tasks. How 
complete and wonderful is the coordination of the 
members of our physical frames in the discharge of 
their common offices and duties. Let a direction 
be flashed from the brain over the nerve wires to a 
member of the body requiring that a certain thing 
be done, then all the other members conspire to- 
gether to assist in the designated task, and to ac- 





* Preached at the Installation Service held in Christ 
Church Pro Cathedral, Trenton, on Thursday, November 6, 
1919. 

260 


KEEPING THE FAITH 961 


complish the will of the governing head. Sup- 
pose the order comes to limb or foot to move the 
body to another place. At once the eye measures 
the space to be gone through, the hand buttons 
up the coat and grasps the walking stick; heart, 
lung, digestive apparatus get busy in providing 
the requisite nourishment and strength, and there 
is cooperative action in every part of the inter- 
related and compliant structure. “The eye can- 
not say to the hand I have no need of thee, nor 
again the hand to the feet I have no need of 
you.” All the members recognize their mutual 
dependence on each other and know that without 
their joint endeavors the activities of the body 
cannot be carried on. There is need of the same 
unity and harmony of action in the smritual body, 
the Church, of which our Blessed Lord is the 
Head, and we are members in particular. Down 
from the Head on spiritual wires come the direc- 
tions to the finely tempered members, enjoining 
various common offices and tasks which can only 
be fulfilled when they strive together, not singly 
and apart, for the accomplishment of the end. 
It is indispensable that there should be combined 
action of all the members “holding the Head even 
Christ from Whom all the body by joints and 


bands having nourishment ministered, and knit 


962 KEEPING THE FAITH 


together increaseth with the increase of God.” 
These words apply not only to a body of Chris- 
tian people collected in a parish, but also to a 
collection of parishes united in a diocese, which 
is the unit of the-Church, the integral and forma- 
tive part of the fully organized body with a 
bishop as its earthly head. In our own diocese we 
have long felt the need of a more perfect corre- 
lation and combination of the various departments 
of our work, and to bring this about we have 
adopted the cathedral system, in the interest of 
which we are convened, and which has recently 
been so much enlarged as to include all the 
branches of our diocesan activities. By the ac- 
tion of our last convention our missionary, edu- 
cational and social service boards were incor- 
porated with it, and this, it was hoped, would be 
of reciprocal advantage to them all, and help to 
secure a greater fruitage from their labors. The 
system is naturally suited to beget a common 
diocesan consciousness in the parishes which make 
up the corporate body, and promote that united 
and efficient action which the parochial system 
by itself has never fully done. 

Loyalty to our church authorities must incline 
us to endorse their action and to give cordial ac- 
ceptance to the cathedral system, but there are 


KEEPING THE FAITH 263 


some who would like to have a clearer under- 
standing of what the system itself is. Long ac- 
customed as we, American Church people, have 
been to a system in which the cathedral has had 
little or no part, it would not be strange if the 
whole idea of it should seem vague and unfamil- 
jar, and that we should ask for further explana- 
tion of it before giving it unqualified approval. 
Let us then try to set it a little more distinctly be- 
fore our minds, as we throw out a few thoughts in 
answer to the questions, what is a cathedral, and 
what are the chief uses which recommend it to 
our favor ? 

I. A cathedral may be viewed as a building 
or as an institution. In its former aspect it is 
the chief church in a diocese in which the bishop 
has his cathedra, official seat, or throne. In the 
latter, it is a corporation or body of persons or- 
ganized in accordance with the terms of the 
cathedral charter, and devoted to the special re- 
ligious objects which the cathedral is intended 
to promote. As a building it has one distinc- 
tive feature which differentiates it from other 
churches, and this, as we have said, is the pres- 
ence in it of the bishop’s official seat. It is this, 
not size, material, or style of architecture which 
gives cathedral character to the structure. Usu- 


964 KEEPING THE FAITH 


ally it is a building of dignified proportions, in 
a more or less populous centre, into which the 
bishop has a guaranteed right of entrance for the 
performance of the various services and functions 
peculiar to his office. An early canon required 
that cathedrals should be established only in chief 
cities, but this was soon interpreted to mean not 
merely cities of larger size, but also of leading 
influence, political, educational, or moral: and 
sometimes in England the bishop became over- 
seer of a district rather than a city—the position 
of his cathedral being dictated by motives of ex- 
pediency or convenience rather than by the dig- 
nity or populousness of its site. Frequently 
cathedrals are large and magnificent structures 
planned and built for their own distinctive uses, 
but they are sometimes more modest fabries con- 
verted into cathedrals from parish churches. 
Some of the most useful ones in our land are 
such transformed churches which have been leased 
by parochial to diocesan authorities under a ter- 
minable contract which may cease to have binding 
force at the will of either party, but which should 
yet hold good long enough to test the wisdom of 
the experiment. Such are the cathedrals of the 
diocese of Massachusetts, and of our sister diocese 
of Newark, both of which have been formed from 


KEEPING THE FAITH. 965 


ancient historic churches, and are justifying their 
existence by the abundance of the fruits they are 
bringing forth unto God. Should it be deemed 
advisable that the cathedral in this diocese should 
be of a similar character, the parish selected for 
such distinction need not lose its identity nor be 
shorn of any of its vested rights and liberties, but 
simply consent to hold them in abeyance for the 
sake of the kingdom and its Lord, as this parish 
has willingly done; and the bishop would then 
take care that the parish shall be served by a 
pastor acceptable to itself; that there shall be no 
clashing of parochial with cathedral interests and 
services, but that all things shall be arranged with 
a view to the spiritual advantage of the local con- 
gregation, and the edifying of the whole body in 
love. One consideration which must have weight 
in the determination of the cathedral site is the 
necessity of placing it where it will not interfere 
with the work of existing parishes, and where 
there will be room for the various institutions 
which ought in time to be clustered around it: 
and this has sometimes led to the selection of a 
smaller town in which there is but a single parish, 
but one deemed capable of proper expansion, and 
adaptable to cathedral needs. 

There ig a common feeling, indeed, that a 


266 KEEPING THE FAITH 


cathedral is meant to minister to great masses of 
people, but while some, in our larger cities, are 
doing this most effectively, yet this is not their 
primary and distinctive use. This is to give the 
bishop an altar and a seat; to give the people 
under him a centre of unity in fellowship and 
work, to draw together the various agencies and 
administrative forces of a diocese by the power 
of a comprehensive organization and unifying 
aim; to set the parishes in such relation to the 
diocese that they shall become the facile instru- 
ments through which the many-membered body 
performs its functions and undertakes its larger 
tasks. Obviously a church need not have a very 
large congregation to qualify it for such cathe- 
dral uses, and it is remarkable how cathedrals 
have a way of creating congregations for them- 
selves. Ely is the smallest cathedral town in 
England. Its population thirty years ago did not 
exceed five or six thousand persons. But there 
was then a congregation of more than twelve 
hundred under its dome on every Sunday eve- 
ning. When in the seventh century St. Ethel- 
dreda founded the monastery at Ely, there was 
no town or village on the spot, but the inhabitants 
of a neighboring village were attracted by the new 
religious house and soon moved their habitations 


KEEPING THE FAITH 267 


near to it. ‘Thus, as the dean remarked, the pop- 
ulation came to the church, not the church to the 
population; and we may add there are cathedrals 
of our own time which have shown something of 
the same drawing power. But wherever the Epis- 
copal see may be established, whether in a larger 
or smaller town, the parish in which it is situated 
will derive certain great benefits from the resi- 
dence within it of one who would bear to it the 
grace and benediction of the apostolic office; and 
from a staff of clergy with varied gifts who would 
give them the benefit of their ministrations: a 
staff large enough to carry out the devotional 
system of the Church in its completeness—to let 
no day pass without the saying of the choir and 
altar offices, nor allow any opportunity to give 
spiritual instruction and guidance to young or 
old to be unimproved. Such a staff would offer 
daily intercessions for their brethren, both clerical 
and lay, settled in the parishes, and especially 
for the lonely and discouraged workers in our 
mission fields. They should be patterns of good 
works to all who are ergaged in them, and try to 
open larger fields and better methods to the in- 
experienced but expanding energies of faith and 
love. All this and much more would enter into 
the compensation which would come to any parish 


268 KEEPING THE FAITH 


for the partial sacrifice of its independence by 
consenting to become a cathedral; but this may 
no longer claim our attention for the question 
of the cathedral site is as yet a speculative and 
academic one and there is no proposal before us 
to remove the bishop’s seat from the place it now 
occupies in this hospitable church, which is en- 
deared to us by many sacred and tender associa- 
tions connected with Bishops Scarborough and 
Knight and from which we could not break away 
without the compulsion of a strong sense of duty 
to the diocese as a whole. 

Il. We may go on to mention two or three 
of the larger traditional uses of a cathedral from 
which all the parishes and people of a diocese 
should derive benefit. (a) And first it should 
serve as both an example and inspiration to them 
of reverent and continued worship of the Triune 
God, maintained with every circumstance of de- 
votion, beauty and solemnity that belongs to it 
in its ideal and scriptural perfection. In many 
of our parish churches, indeed, Divine Worship 
is conducted with a becoming reverence and de- 
votion, but none of these can take the place of the 
cathedral in which the whole diocese is represent- 
atively convened, and on which, when the Divine 
Eye looks down It sees the whole body on its 


KEEPING THE FAITH 269 


knees or standing with uplifted heart and voice 
to utter praise. The inspiration of the corporate 
worship should be felt in all the individual par- 
ishes, and the due rendering of the worship has 
always been a master motive in the construction 
of the great cathedrals of the world, which were 
never built for the mere embellishment of a city, 
the gratification of architectural taste nor for the 
accommodation of enormous gatherings of people 
but chiefly for the honor of God’s Holy Name; 
as an expression of a devotion, loyalty and love 
that could be satisfied with nothing but the best, 
the noblest, the most costly offering that could be 
made. Dean Farrar has well said in one of his 
books, “However ignorant one may be of the 
spirit and technicalities of architecture, it is im- 
possible to stand in the shadow of one of these 
majestic buildings without feeling that they em- 
body an ideal of the human heart, an aspiration 
of human genius, as unmistakable as any ex- 
pressed in music or poetry. Our Minsters were 
no mere shelters for the assemblage of worship- 
pers; they were themselves a form of worship, an 
embodiment of praise and prayer in materials 
less fugitive than the breath of psalm or anti- 
phon” ... It may be said that God has no need 
of such costly buildings, which indeed is true; but 


270 KEEPING THE FAITIL 


man has need of them properly to express and im- 
press himself: and when offered as an expression 
of overflowing love and devotion they are as ac- 
ceptable as was the costly box of odors poured on 
the dear Redeemer’s feet. Many of the old cathe- 
drals were expressions of such a love, and the ab- 
sorbing thought in the minds of their builders was 
God and His glory rather than man and his need, 
and so if sometimes neglected by man they would 
not have failed altogether of their purpose. It 
seems to have been one chief motive of their build- 
ers to make some reparation to God for the dis- 
honor and indignity cast upon the Holy Name by 
human sin, and to rear a monument which would 
show that there were some on earth to whom His 
honor was most dear, and who really believed 
that to love and honor Him was the first duty of 
His creatures. What had not man done to insult 
His majesty and to despite His holiness! They 
had broken His laws, blasphemed His name, and 
when He came on earth in the person of His Son 
had scoffed Him, spit upon Him, and even put 
Him to death upon the cross. How can we atone 
for it? What amends can the grieved, wounded, 
broken human heart make for such shameful 
treatment of the object of its unbounded love and 
veneration? The cathedral is one of the answers 


KEEPING THE FAITH 271 


to this question. We cannot expect that many 
such answers will be given in this practical age, 
when love runs cold, and our thoughts are much 
more on the service of man in his present earthly 
life than on the service of his Maker, yet would 
it not be a happy thing if here and there one of 
these great sermons in stone could arise to remind 
us of our duty to put the first thing first, to put 
the love and worship of God before the service of 
our neighbor, but this in order that the latter may 
be the more certainly and completely done. For 
the love and service of God must necessarily lead 
to that of man whom God so dearly Joved as to 
take into everlasting union with His Deity, and 
with whom He has so completely identified Him- 
self that acts of love and service done to His 
needy children are counted as also done to Him. 
He bids us see His image in those to whom we 
minister and puts no difference between the min- 
istration to Him and the loving deed to those who 
bear the image; and so unless the love of Him 
Whom we have not seen is leading us to the love 
of those whom we do see, and who are putting 
God and the opportunity of serving Him before 
us every day, there can be little reality in our 
love; and without such loving service the most 
splendid and studied cathedral rites would be 


272 KEEPING THE FAITH 


mere vain oblations, without meaning or value 
in God’s sight. And so, another office of the 
cathedral is to be the spring and centre of the 
various kinds of beneficent work in which the 
parishes should engage. It is suited to unite the 
parishes in the common undertakings which are 
for the good of the whole Church, and for com- 
munity and civic welfare. Perhaps one secret 
of our poor showing in such publie service lies 
in the fact that we have not used the cathedral 
system as we might have done. Is it not prob- 
able, my brothers, that the one great cause of the 
weakness and inefficiency of the Church at large 
in its greater undertakings is its exclusive reliance 
on the parochial system, which, admirable and 
indispensable as it is, yet needs the cathedral to 
supplement and complete it? To expect the body 
of the Church to reach a goal without the unifying 
system would be as unwise as to expect the phys- 
ical body to go to a distant city without the com- 
bination and cooperation of all the members. 
There must be unity and harmony of action to 
accomplish anything worth while, and this was 
far better understood in the early ages of the 
Church than now. (a) How was it with the mis- 
sionary operations of the Church in the early 
days? These were conducted by what was in ef- 


KEEPING THE FAITH a 


fect the cathedral system, for the primitive mis- 
sionary scheme was first to have a bishop, give 
him an altar, font, and a few priests, and then 
let them go forth with gospel and sacrament to 
evangelize the surrounding people and gather 
them into the Church; and in this way the Church 
was extended over large portions of the ancient 
world. We have reversed the process and want 
to get people first and afterward the bishop and 
his church. Our usual method of evangelization 
is to send out a minister or layman with a pro- 
phetic gift, and let the converts they may make 
search for a church, if they can find one suited 
to their taste, and not worry overmuch if they 
do not succeed. But we are returning to the 
primitive way and there has been a general move- 
ment in the Church in recent years to revive the 
old cathedral system, and make it the instrument 
by which not only our missionary but also our 
educational and social service operations shall be 
carried on. (b) How well suited it is to promote 
the cause of religious education! Nothing should 
more interest and enthuse us than the efforts of 
the Church to give education a religious tone and 
character, to make it aim at the developing of the 
moral and spiritual, as well as the mental and 
physical part of our being. The cathedrals have 


o%4 KEEPING THE FAITH 


long ago proved their usefulness in the work. In 
all ages of their history they have been homes of 
pure learning, nuclei around which schools, sem- 
inaries, lectureships have been collected, all aim- 
ing at not only the discipline of the understanding 
but also the guidance of the conscience, the de- 
veloping of the spiritual insights and the forma- 
tion of the “manners that maketh man.” It is 
greatly to be hoped that in time some such schools 
may be established within the precincts of our 
own cathedrals or adjacent to them—schools in 
which the philosophy, the ethic, the apologetic, 
the history shall be Christian in tone, and tend to 
the upbuilding of faith and spiritual character 
rather than their weakening and decay. In past 
years the English cathedrals have been useful in 
securing and partially preparing young men for 
the sacred ministry; and this in the future may 
be one of the most useful functions of the cathe- 
drals in America—especially of those which are 
situate in or near academic towns. Usually in 
the cathedral staff there will be a secretary of 
religious education whose duty it will be to give 
attention to this very thing, and try to see that 
religion shall have its rightful place in the train- 
ing of the home, the primary and secondary school 
and the seats of higher learning; and surely ne 


KEEPING THE FAITH ON5 


better service can be rendered to the Church and 
State than this. (c) The adaptedness of the 
cathedral to social service work is being demon- 
strated before our eyes by what our institutional 
chaplain is doing among the neglected people in 
the asylums, homes, hospitals, infirmaries and re- 
formatories of our diocese and state. In these 
institutions are many of our own people to whom 
we are bound to minister, and do all we can to 
alleviate the hardships of their lonely and dis- 
tressed condition. We cannot leave the care of 
the sick, the infirm in body or mind, the aged or 
the young to the State alone, for however much 
this may long to aid them it cannot provide the 
special supernatural grace and help required for 
their varied spiritual and bodily needs. There 
must be a Christlike sympathy and inward tran- 
quillity in one who would minister successfully 
to disordered mind or body, and so the Church 
will take care that those who visit them shall 
know something of the tenderness, the pity, the 
peace of Christ. Her ministers will try to bring 
Christ’s sympathy to bear upon the comfort of the 
sorrowing, and His grace and power upon the 
uplift of the fallen. To carry on this and other 
work which awaits us, for which no corporation 
has been formed, an endowment fund has been 


276, KEEPING THE FAITH 


started in the diocese, which is pleading for con- 
tributions, either large or small, and will not, we 
trust, plead in vain. A word about one other 
benefit which the cathedral system should bring 
to us all, and that is the widening of the scope 
of our Christian love. There is often a narrow- 
ness in our love that needs to be corrected. We 
find it comparatively easy to love those who are 
near to us—those in our parish, town, or home— 
but harder to love those at a distance, to love 
mankind, the world, as our Heavenly Father . 
does. The cathedral with its far visions and 
broad tasks ought to help us in the cultivation of 
the broader love. It ought to get us out of the 
ruts of a mere parochialism, emancipate us from 
the spirit of selfishness in our religion, and make 
us love and labor for all the children of our Heav- 
enly Father; all for whom the most loving Re- 
deemer shed His precious blood. Our love will 
not be perfect till we love even those in whom 
the image of their Maker is most marred and 
blurred and for whom we are willing to go down 
to the depths, to lift them up again into the light 
of life and hope. I think it a happy omen that 
the cathedral is doing this, at the very beginning 
of its life, and is thus giving us a sign that it 
1s of God and that it must prosper. The most 


KEEPING THE FAITH OTT 


of us, I am sure, feel that there is sufficient rea- 
son why we should give cordial welcome to the 
cathedral system, and help it as we can by our 
labors, sympathies and prayers. We know that 
what we shall get out of it will depend very 
largely upon what we shall put into it. If we 
give it our warm interest, intelligent cooperation, 
and loving zeal, it may be full of blessing to our- 
selves, our parishes, and our Church at large; if 
we receive it coldly, in a spirit of captious criti- 
cism, or, at best, indulgent toleration, its results 
will be meagre and disappointing to the diocese 
and the Lord we aim to serve; and may we not 
all fittingly remind ourselves again before clos- 
ing that the system will inevitably be a barren 
one unless all who labor in it feel themselves to 
be members of the living Body of which Christ is 
the Head; unless all the branches of its work are 
instinct with His vitality and directed by His 
will. Much time and thought have been given 
to the perfecting of the system. This will be all 
in vain unless Christ be in it from its beginning 
to its end, unless we are holding to Him in a 
spirit of loving affiance and complete surrender, 
and treating all its activities as channels of com- 
munication with Him, and of reception from Him 
of an hourly grace and help. “Without Him we 


278 KEEPING THE FAITH 


can do nothing; with Him we can bring forth 
much fruit and the fruit shall remain.” 

It may be long before our hopes and dreams of 
a cathedral building will be realized. We may 
have to wait till God shall have touched some 
hearts more deeply with an exceptional love, but 
we need not wait before we build the spiritual 
structure of which the material cathedral is but 
a symbol, and which has a transcendent value in 
the sight of heaven. Large and magnificent plans 
have been made by our leaders for the rearing of 
that spiritual structure. Soul-enchanting views 
of it have been made to pass before the captivated 
eye; let us all count it a privilege and joy to 
have some part in its erection, to give ourselves, 
first, as lively stones to be built into it, and then 
to induce others by our labors and prayers to 
yield. themselves as pliant material for the com- 
pleting of the structure, the pattern of which has 
been shown us in the mount. It is but little, 
indeed, that I can do to further the splendid work, 
but the remnant of strength which is left to me 
I desire to devote unreservedly to its accomplish- 
ment. I have been inducted into an office to-day, 
the duties of which far transcend my diminished 
powers of service, and while I deeply appreciate 
the dignity of the office and the honor conferred on 


KEEPING THE FAITH 279 


one to whom it is entrusted, I feel the pressure of 
the cross belonging also to it, and the burden of 
the many possibilities which it opens, but which I 
can never hope to reach. But I would not have it 
otherwise. One would not spend his last days 
without a cross to bear or a load to carry, and if 
he should sink beneath the weight, how much 
better it is that a life should be thus laid down 
than that it should waste away in idleness or 
on flowering beds of ease. But the most of those 
whom I am privileged to address have something 
more than the remnant of their days to devote to 
the work, you can give it the full strength of 
your manhood or womanhood and may rejoice in 
seeing the progress of that of which I can only see 
the beginning; but whatever part we may have 
in it, let us consecrate ourselves anew to it, you 
devoting your strength and I my weakness in a 
spirit of glad and loving surrender. Through all 
difficulties and delays let us labor on with un- 
shaken faith and joyful confidence that our work 
can never be in vain. O let us dare to believe 
that there is a splendid future in store for the 
Church of Christ in our distracted land and world, 
that the clouds which cast their gloomy portent 
over our political sky and darken the windows of 
our churches and depress our own spirits will pass 


280 KEEPING THE FAITH 


away and that the glorious sun will yet appear 
and shed its cheering beams on pacified nation, 
purified church, reconciled brotherhoods and mul- 
titudes of groping souls who have been led to 
Christ the Light. Let us build for that glorious 
future, and build with a generosity of plan and 
aim proportioned to the large-hearted schemes, the 
far-reaching visions, the vast necessities disclosed 
to us by the surveys of the nation-wide campaign. 
Our efforts will be quite in line with what the 
campaign will aim to do, namely to arouse and 
unite the energies of all our people in a supreme 
endeavor to advance the cause and Church of 
Christ, to promote the peace of the nations, and 
set forward the salvation of the world; or as one 
of its interpreters expresses it, “the aim is to give 
the people a new and inspiring vision of the large- 
ness of the Church’s opportunity and duty and to 
enlist the same swift efficiency and the same high 
consecration in the pursuit of the aim as was 
shown by soldiers and citizens in the service of 
their country in the recent war.” O my friends, 
never before in our history has the call to splen- 
did sacrifice and service been so urgent, so com- 
manding, so soul-thrilling as this which now 
comes to us;—on bended knee let each of us ask 
what in it can I, what may I do? One of the 


KEEPING THE FAITH 981 


questions which the leaders of the campaign put 
to us is this: “What is the strategic thing, what 
is the victorious thing which the Church in your 
diocese or parish can dare now to attempt,” and to 
this question they ask us to give our thought, our 
intelligence, our earnest prayers. Should we 
not consider well whether the answer may not be 
the more full establishment of the cathedral sys- 
tem in the diocese, in imitation of the strategic 
action of the General Church, which for the sake 
of greater efficiency has just put all its working 
societies and boards under the charge of a central 
council, which seems much like a cathedral chap- 
ter of nation-wide extent? But to whatever an- 
swer the Divine Spirit may direct our minds we 
cannot doubt that the strategic critical thing for 
each of us as individuals to do is to seek to be- 
come a more effective instrument for God’s work 
in our respective parishes; to make the parish a 
better member of the organism of the diocese; the 
diocese a more sympathetic and helpful member 
of the National Church, and the National Church 
a fuller and better exponent of the One Holy 
Catholic Church of Christ throughout the world. 
By such endeavors we shall best promote the ‘work 
of the vast spiritual cathedral on which our hearts 
and minds are set, a fabric made up of human 


282 KEEPING THE FAITH 


souls united to Christ and indwelt by His Spirit, 
“whose walls are Salvation and whose gates are 
Praise,” and of which the Lord God has said 
“there will I dwell, this shall be my rest for ever ;” 
and we shall be the better prepared for the rearing 
of its counterpart—the material structure—when 
the divine bidding shall come to us, “Arise and 
build.” Then the rearing of the material and 
spiritual structures may go on together. The 
beauty and glory of the one may be interblended 
with that of the other, and together they will make 
up the splendor of the eternal habitation of the 
Lord, in which material gifts made for love’s sake 
to His earthly house shall still be essentially pre- 
served and made to share in the immortality of 
Him who “came not to destroy but to fulfill.” 
Let us bring to the construction of His house all 
our best treasures of soul and brain, of hand and 
purse because the heart within us can be satisfied 
with nothing less. © 

‘Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy House 
and the place where Thine honor dwelleth.” 

Teach us to love and reverence it more and 
more by giving us a growing love for Thee! 


SERMON XXIV 
PREACHED AT A PARISH ANNIVERSARY 


A threefold cord is not quickly broken.—Kc- 
clesiastes 4: 12. 


yee) IK reverent reader of the Bible may often 
find a deeper meaning in its words than 

appears upon the surface; and we shall 
not overpass the limits of our Christian liberty 
if we look beneath the obvious sense of the text 
and discover in it the suggestion of a larger sig- 
nificance. This is Trinity Sunday, one of the 
chief festivals of the Christian year; and we are 
reminded by it how in the unity of the one God 
Whom we reverence and serve there are three 
Persons Whom the Scriptures name as Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost; and I would like to think 
with you, on this sacred day, of this revelation of 
the triplicity of God as forming a threefold cord 
intended to bind us to the Divine Being; and to 
hold us so securely that it cannot easily be broken. 


We shall be led away in our course of thought 
283 


Y 


984 KEEPING THE FAITH 


from the doctrine of the Trinity in its formulated 
theological expression, and shall rather view it in 
its plain practical bearing on our life and conduct. 
We shall think of the three Persons of the God- 
head not as they subsist in their essential being, 
but rather in their revealed relations to ourselves, 
in their characteristic modes of action or opera- 
tion on mankind. The distinctive work of the 
Father, as this is presented in the Scripture and 
the Creeds, is that of creation, He is the maker 
of heaven and earth, of all things visible and in- 
visible. The characteristic work of the Son in 
His relation to our world is redemption, in the 
accomplishment of which He came down from 
heaven, took our flesh upon Him, and in it was 
offered as a Sacrifice on the Cross. The chief of- 
fice of the Holy Spirit is that of sanctifier of 
those whom the Father has made and the Son has 
redeemed. He operates on unregenerate human 
nature, spiritualizes, refines, perfects it, and 
makes it fit to become a dwelling place of God. 
Now it is these three modes of divine operation 
that constitute the three-stranded cord that should 
bind us in irrefrangible union to our God, and 
hold us by ties of love and loyalty which nothing 
on earth or in heaven can ever violate or break. 

I. I presume that most of us sometimes think 


KEEPING THE FAITH 285 


of God as a creator and we yield at least an in- 
tellectual assent to the statement that He is the 
Author of our own life and being. We cannot be 
satisfied with any theory of the universe but the 
theistic one, and rational thinking scouts at the 
idea that the things we see around us made them- 
selves, or that we brought ourselves into being. 
We are sure that there must be a cause behind 
all kinds of existence, an energy or power which 
has operated to produce them. And what is this 
power? Is it a fluid, mechanical, material force 
which works in the dark and only by the fixed 
methods which an iron necessity has somehow 
forced upon it; or is the power resident in a per- 
son who is conscious, free, intelligent, and who 
puts wise purpose into it and directs it toward a 
beneficent end? Our Christianity teaches that 
the latter is the case. Its Creed does not force us 
to accept any theory of creation: it does not de- 
cide whether all things were made by special acts 
of creative power, or by a long process of evolu- 
tion, but it obliges us io believe, that whether by 
fiat or process, God did create; and if by process, 
that He was present in every stage of the devel- 
oping movement just as the builder is present in 
every stone placed in the rising church tower or 
in the wheels and springs of the complicated clock 


986. KEEPING THE FAITH 


that strikes the hours upon its massive bells. But 
our faith goes much further. It teaches that the 
Creator is a Father, and that creation is an ex- 
pression of His Fatherly instinct and yearning. 
It is natural in a father to want children. 
Fatherhood can only be predicated of one who 
has offspring; it cannot be affirmed as an attri- 
bute or characteristic of one who has no descend- 
ants. The Eternal Father longed to have sons 
and daughters. When He said to the other Per- 
sons in the Godhead, “Let us make man in our 
image after our likeness,” the words but expressed 
the boundless yearning of His infinite heart. He 
wanted to people the solitudes of the world He had 
made with a race of beings who might share the 
joy of His own life, who might reproduce some 
of the features of His own being, with whom He 
might commune, and to whom He might commit 
the world as a children’s inheritance which they 
should occupy, enjoy, and improve. And so He 
_made man, and is still making him in the fulfil- 
ment of the innate propensity of fatherhood. 
Each one whom He creates He causes to differ 
from all the rest, no two are precisely alike. 
Each is the object of thought and forethought on 
the part of the Creator and each He would make 
a new and original specimen of creative skill and 


KEEPING THE FAITH 287 


discriminating love. And so whatever may be 
our differences in station, temperament, endow- 
ment, we may each of us look up to God and say, 
“Doubtless Thou art my Father. Thy hands 
have made me and fashioned me, Thine eyes did 
see my substance, yet being imperfect, and in Thy 
book were all my members written, which day by 
day were fashioned when as yet there were none 
of them.” Now, my friends, when we deeply 
realize the truth that God is our Father and we 
are His children, when we feel that He is the 
Author and Sustainer of our lives, the bountiful 
Giver of all the blessings with which our overflow- 
ing cups are filled, when we are sure that He is 
deeply interested in our welfare and happiness 
and that even His chastisements are evidences of 
His love; that when He sends them He is trying 
to bring us into a higher, better, nobler life— 
even as the bird each fond endearment tries to 
tempt its offspring to the skies—it is when we 
realize the truth of all this, that we feel the 
drawing of the first strand in the triple cord which 
should unite us to our God. With such a Father 
how can we ever be unfilial, undutiful, disobedient 
children? If we have ever wandered away from 
the Father and His home, saying with the rebel- 
hous, ‘‘Let us cast away His cords from us,’ ’ should 


288 KEEPING THE FAITH 


not the revelation of His Fatherhood to-day touch 
our hearts and induce us to return? Oh, how 
many and how endearing are the associations that 
are clustered around this word “father’—what 
other word has such power to enchain and enchant 
the heart as by a magic spell! Perhaps as I men- 
tion it the memory of a venerated parent who was 
the best of earthly friends while he lived, who was 
our confidant and adviser in childhood, youth, 
and middle life, to whom we went first to tell our 
joys, unfold our plans, and make known our sor- 
rows, whom it was our highest happiness to please 
and our best endeavor not to wound, who was 
our shelter and defence against the storms and 
shocks of the rude hard world, and when he died 
became our best emblem of saintly perfection in 
the heavenly spheres,—all this and much more is 
treasured up in the word “father” as used by a 
loyal and loving child. All this and much more 
should belong to our conception of our Father, 
God, for human fatherhood is but a miniature of 
the relationship in which He stands to men, and 
the love of parents to their children, as Leighton 
says, ‘is but a drop to the ocean of fatherly love 
which is in Himself.” 

II. But, my friends, we cannot but sorrow- 


KEEPING THE FAITH 289 


fully remember that our race as a whole has not 
felt the constraining power of God’s Fatherhood 
as it should have done, and that we have often 
behaved as ungrateful and disobedient children. 
“J have nourished and brought up children but 
they have rebelled against me,” is the age-long 
grief of the infinite Father, and often have they 
acted as did the prodigal in the parable, and 
broken the cords which bound them to the Fath- 
er’s heart and home, turned their backs upon 
Him, and tried to satisfy the hunger of their 
souls with the husks and vanities of the famine- 
stricken world. But the Father’s heart still 
yearned over His lost children, and would not let 
Him rest without seeking their deliverance and 
return; and we all know how the work of rescue 
and redemption was accomplished by His sending 
His Only Begotten Son into the world, to take 
our nature upon Him, and in it to lead us back 
to the Father, by His teaching, example, and of- 
fering of Himself upon the Cross. We still re- 
mained the sons of God in our wandering and 
sin, but we had lost the sense of sonship, we felt 
ourselves estranged from God and looked upon 
Him as an enemy rather than as a Father and 
Friend. But the Eternal Son revealed Him in 


990 KEEPING THE FAITH 


His true character, showed Him as still loving 
and forgiving, as reconciled to the wanderers and 
ready to welcome back all who would put away 
their sense of alienation, and return to His 
Fatherly embrace. Thus the well Beloved Son 
restored our own sonship, made us God’s children 
in a higher sense than we were before, becoming 
such by a new birth into God’s family. Even as 
St. John says, “As many as received Him to 
them gave He power to become children of God, 
even to them that believe on His name, which 
were born not of blood nor of the will of man but 
of God.” Now, my friends, to this work of res- 
toration and redemption is fastened one of the 
strongest of the cords which help to unite us to 
our God. The Only Begotten draws us to the 
Father by “the cords of love and the bands of 
a man” and draws us by the most tender and 
effective powers of attraction that can be exerted 
on the human heart. He draws us by the beauty 
and power of His own Sonship, by exhibiting on 
the plane of our human life all the graces and 
virtues, all the love, devotion, and pure obedience 
that belong to our own sonship in its ideal and 
complete perfection ; and He draws us, most pow- 
erfully, by His life of unselfish sacrifice and serv- 
ice in our behalf and by His willing offering of 


KEEPING THE FAITH 291 


Himself for us on the painful Cross, thus ful- 
filing His own word, “If I be lifted up from the 
earth, I will draw all men unto me.” 

O wondrous love of God, O weak and wandering 
heart of man! Do we not all feel something of 
the secret drawing of the cord of the perfect Son- 
ship in our souls to-day? If we have been wan- 
derers from the Father, do we not feel the urge of 
the Son entreating us to return? He went up 
from the Cross to the highest heavens; how know 
we that He is still there and is trying to draw us 
back to the Father? Let a child give the answer. 
He was flying a kite and it had soared so high 
as it be almost hidden by the clouds. “What 
have you there?’ asked a wayfarer who was pass- 
ing by? “A kite, sir,” was the boy’s reply. 
“How can that be,” said the questioner, ‘when 
neither you nor I can see it?’ “Ah, I feel it 
pulling,” was the boy’s quick answer. That is 
our best evidence. We feel the pull of the Christ 
on the heart strings, on the conscience and the 
life, and as He loves us, He will never let us 
cease to feel it till we yield to its influence, and 
go back to the Father as contrite and forgiven 
children. 

III. But there is one other strand in the triple 
cord of which we must not omit to say a word. 


992 KEEPING THE FAITH 


This is the influence of the Holy Spirit which is 
being continually exerted on us and without 
which we would have neither the inclination nor 
the ability to return to the Father, nor could we 
be made fit to dwell in His Presence. The draw- 
ing of the Spirit is not separable from that of the 
Christ, for He is the spirit of the Son, as well as 
of the Father, and is sent by the Son t» represent 
Him in the world, and make Him a continued 
Presence in it after His ascension into heaven. 
But although not distinct it is distinguishable 
from that of the Christ and its whole aim is by 
purely spiritual touch and operation, to apply to 
us the benefits of Christ’s redemptive work, to re- 
new and sanctify our nature, to implant within 
us spiritual graces and dispositions, to make us 
Christlike in character, and thus form such sons 
of God as He is, and so glorify the Christ by the 
fruits of His endeavors. 

Oh, how we should thank and praise our God 
this day for all that He has done and is still doing 
for us, in accomplishing the work of our sancti- 
fication! How grateful we should be for His re- 
generating gift in baptism, His strengthening 
touch in confirmation, His communications of the 
Christ life in the Holy Communion; and for all 
the private touches of His grace made in secrecy 


KEEPING THE FAITH 293 


and silence on our inmost souls. What wondrous 
condescension He has shown in consenting to take 
up His abode in our hearts, which are so unfit to 
be the dwelling place of one so supremely holy! 
What long-suffering patience He has exhibited in 
His refusals to leave us or forsake us, even though 
His dwelling place may have been defiled by im- 
purity, uncharity, envy, pride, or unbelief! He 
may be despised and rejected by us, we may shut 
our ears to His pleadings and reproofs, but He 
does not resent our rude treatment. He con- 
tinues to strive and sue and speak of Jesus to us, 
hoping that we at last will listen, and return with 
broken hearts to the embrace of the all-loving 
God. Surely there are none of us who have not 
some compunction because of our past treatment 
of the Holy Ghost, and (unless our hearts are ut- 
terly hardened) we must feel some faint drawings 
of the Spirit toward a life of friendship with the 
Father, and fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ. 
These let us follow remembering that the Spirit’s 
drawing involves a separation from earthliness 
and sin as well as an attraction toward holiness 
and God, even as the crystal drop is lifted by the 
sun from the muddy pool, with no taint of im- 
purity remaining in it; or as the waters of the 
briny sea are drawn up into the clouds with every 


294 KEEPING THE FAITH 


trace of the acrid salts purged away. And so, my 
friends, ought there not to be a tightening of the 
threefold cord around our hearts to-day, and ought 
we not to be drawn closer to the God who wants 
to fold us to his breast? We have all been de- 
voted to the service of the Thrice Holy One. 
We are members of a parish which bears His 
name, and which holds to-day the eighty-seventh 
anniversary of its dedication, and so we cannot 
but feel that in a very peculiar sense we owe Him 
all the love, the reverence, the service we can ren- 
der; and this not only as individuals but as joined 
together in the mystic bonds of a fellowship, 
created and set apart by special consecration to 
the honor of the Triune God. The Holy Trinity 
should ever be for us an inspiration and example. 
The bonds which unite us to the Triune One 
should draw us more closely to each other, and 
cause us to exhibit more fully in all our parochial 
relations and works, the unity and coordination 
of which they in all their activities are a model. 
We may thank God with all our hearts for all that 
He has enabled us to do for Him in the past years 
of our parochial existence, and yet should ear- 
nestly pray that there should be a more abundant 
yield in the future of the fruit of good works by 
which His Holy Name is glorified. There re- 


KEEPING THE FAITH 295 


mains but ten years before we shall reach the 
hundredth anniversary of the parish. God grant 
that those who shall be spared to celebrate the cen- 
tennial may look back on these intervening years 
as the best and most fruitful in all the century. 
But whether our working day be longer or shorter 
let us all at God’s altar devote ourselves afresh to 
the work. Let us ask God to entwine the triple 
cord more closely around our hearts, and never 
suffer it to be broken. ‘Nearer my God to Thee, 
nearer to Thee.” More love, more faith, more 
zeal, a greater increase in God’s Holy Spirit, and 
a clearer witnessing with our spirits that we are 
the children of God. Let this be our prayer until 
our earthly work is done, and we join the fellow 
laborers who have entered into rest, and “all truth 
and knowledge see in the beatific vision of the 
Blessed Trinity.” 


“The whole triumphant host 

Give thanks to God on high, 

Hail Father, Son, and Holy Ghost 
They ever cry: 

Hail Abraham’s God and mine! 

I join the heavenly lays: 

All might and majesty are Thine 
And endless praise.” 


Raa pi Re Me 
iE WN iat ae ed a 

” a4 Piet AE f 
' ri 1 ' owe ti ' . 
Lay eS Nea i ae a] 
ay keer on aaa eth 


a 
| 


) 


TASARAIM Me 


) ai 


P ah y Diy y, 


aa? 
They 7) 


‘ , cA 
a Pt % ? uy Yi 
: Ey te aba ta 
Pals Lae 





ue i Misa. 


hid sa) yt 
Hate i at cy py ‘a 


hy 
ae 





Date Due 





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